How hero's for hire got set up
by roxygoth
Summary: Danny and Luke are known for being best friends, practically brothers some would say. But it wasn't always that way, believe it or not when they first met, they hated each other. So how did they go from hate at first sight to setting up hero's for hire?
1. Chapter 1

**This story is being written as a request from Swansong of Riverclan, basically he/she asked me to do a story about Iron Fist and Power Man's relationship. Now from the review I have a feeling they were angling for a romantic type of relationship, however I'm not doing that. Only because I see their relationship as best friends/practically brothers. **

**For Swansong, there are a couple of fics that focus on 'power fist' as you call them. There is a good one called 'Balancing Acts' by Misato. I have also read a couple of fics about their comic counterparts. If you are interested just type in Luke and Danny fics or their hero counterparts into google.**

**So, let's get to the disclaimer. I do not own Ultimate Spiderman or anything associated with it. **

When observing Danny and Luke people tended to think of their relationship as being brotherly. They would protect each other and trusted each other completely, Danny even allowed Luke to throw him at people – how much more trust could you put into someone?

They were best friends and acted like they had been all their life, when Peter first joined the team he'd asked them how long they'd known each other, expecting the answer to be something along the lines of 'Oh since we were young'. It came as a shock to him to learn they'd only made friends a year previously, and considering the whole team had only known each other six months at that stage Peter had to get Danny to repeat it to make sure he wasn't going deaf.

It might have been because of the way they acted that people never thought that they were capable of hating each other. But they were and they had when they first met each other. Luke could still remember that day…

He was walking down the street when suddenly he heard the sound of fighting, nothing new, you got that kind of stuff all the time in New York, but still he decided a little investigating wouldn't go a miss.

It was a couple of teenagers, older than him, picking on a little kid who was probably about 10. Luke felt rage creeping up him. He hated bullies, they hadn't noticed him, neither had the kid who was too busy begging. Luke didn't even think, just slipping on his sunglasses to give his eyes a bit of protection before running towards them.

"HEY! PUNKS! PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!"

They turned which gave Luke the perfect opportunity to connect his fist with the leaders face, breaking his nose instantly. There were two other guys who started on him as well, Luke focussed on getting them away from the child who by now was standing unstably.

Just as he was swinging one of them into a wall he heard a "K-YAH!" and turned just in time to see a green foot sail past him and knock out one of the guys, who Luke assumed had been about to knock him out.

The foot was attached to a boy who was about a head smaller than him and wore a green leotard, by the looks of it, with a dragon on it, and a green mask covering the top half of his head. He barely had time to ask what the boy thought he was doing when he heard the pitter-patter of feet and he turned to see the child running away.

'Nice to be thanked.' Luke thought to himself.

"Are you alright?" A voice said and Luke suddenly realised the guy in the leotard was next to him.

"I'm fine." He said shortly. Of course he was fine, he'd grown up on the streets, he was used to this kind of stuff.

"A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness." Was the reply he got. Luke understood what he was saying immediately and he didn't like it.

"I ain't week! I'm strong! Did you not see me throw that guy into a wall!? You know what – never mind. I don't need this, I'm outta here." And with that Luke stormed of, not even looking back at the other guy, a feeling of resentment and hate bubbling up in his chest.

That was the first time Luke and Danny met.


	2. The mugging

**Hey, I'm back! First of all thank you IronFistRocks and NyanWolf for reviewing, it means a lot.**

**Secondly see chapter 1 for the disclaimer. The quote comes from Alexandra Bracken. **

The second time they met was a bit like the first.

Luke had been cruising around the town looking for crime to fight, which let's face it, wasn't particularly hard in New York.

This time it was a mugging two thugs attacking a little old lady. "HEY! LEAVE HER ALONE!"

The two guys had turned and immediately bolted leaving the little old lady on her side. Luke paused momentarily looking at the scared vulnerable women and the two retreating eejits. He let out a growl of frustration before running after the eejits. He was annoyed his heart was telling him to at least help the lady up, but his head was reasoning if he did that the two thugs would get away.

So of he went thundering after them. Eventually he got them in an alley, cornered. Or at least that's what he thought; he somehow managed to forget there were two of them. Naturally a fight broke out and continued for at least ten minutes until one of the thugs grabbed his head and pulled him upwards and another stood in front of him ready to punch.

Except it thankfully never came because at that moment another green foot came sailing past and knocked the guy to the ground.

'Oh come on! This can't be groundhog day.' Luke thought, thoughrilly annoyed as he casually tossed the guy holding him to the ground and then proceeded to knock him unconscious. The leotard guy was dancing around the other bad guy. Just then Luke noticed a couple of other thugs ready to join in the fun. 'Oh no, not on my watch' he thought jumping over and stopping one of the guys before he even took a step forward.

"What they hell are you doing here?" He demanded to the other hero as soon as he was sure he could hear him.

"I believe the technical term is saving your butt." The other guy said snarkily. Luke was surprised at that he had to admit.

"Oh, so you can talk in something other than riddles?" He clarified as he chucked another guy into the trashcans.

"They're proverbs and yes – K-YAH!" Luke was impressed when the guy's fist lit up and he slugged one of the guys into a wall. "Of course I can."

The guy turned back to him and they locked eyes for a couple of seconds. Luke could read curiosity and calmness in the other's eyes, with maybe a hint if anger.

Danny stared at the other guy, he had sunglasses on which blocked his eyes, but going from body language the other was angry. He had no idea why he only met him once.

Luke paused before breaking eye contact and picking up the purse that had fell on the floor during the scuffle. Although he had to admit the others moves were cool, he could still hear the words echoing in his head. "A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness." Ha. Weakness. Luke Cage was not weak and one day he'd make sure the whole world knew it. "C'mon." He said over his shoulder noticing the other hadn't moved. "I know who this belongs to; let's give it back to her."

At first he thought the guy might leave, but he didn't, just nodded and together they walked out of the alleyway.

"Who does it belong to then?" The guy in green asked.

"Little old lady, don't know her name. She was mugged by those…eejits." He was going to call them something worse, but got the feeling that this strange person next to him wouldn't appreciate it.

"It's always easier to take something than work for it" Was the reply he got.

Luke snorted, understanding that comment properly. "Yeah, but stealing's easier. Not that I support it, you understand, but it's easier than working."

"Mmm. And it keeps us in jobs."

"Yeah, except you know, without the money."

"Okay then, voluntary jobs."

"There she is." Luke spotted the woman who was now sitting on a bench with a bunch of passer-by around her. "Here you go mam."

"Oh thank you, young man, what's your name?"

Luke paused, thrown by the question. "Erm…Power…Man, yeah, Power Man."

"Well, thank you Power Man and you…you weren't here before…" She said to the dragon-chested guy, who bowed respectfully.

"Iron Fist, mam."

As they turned away, Luke shot a look at his…assistant. "Iron Fist, huh?"

"Yeah…Power…Man. Not of course that I believe that's your real name considering how long you took to come up with it…"

Another speck of anger took hold of Luke. Okay, so he was new at this and Iron Fist had probably been doing it since the beginning of time by the looks of his moves but still… "Whatever." He took off.

Danny watched him go and then banged his fist into a wall. Stupid. He was still getting the hang of this 'social interaction' thing. Being on a mountain for 10 years of his life hadn't exactly equipped him with the best life skills. He'd meant the above comment as a joke, he didn't realise Power Man would take it personally. Danny punched the wall again before walking off.

Meanwhile up on the tri-carrier Director Fury had been watching the whole thing. "Interesting…" He murmured under his breath.

"Did you see how easily they countered each other?" Coulson said, eagerly. "And they didn't even realise they were doing it!"

"Of course not, they were too busy arguing."

"What do you think? Think they'll make a good first addition to the team?"

Fury considered. "Yes and no. Individually they're good." He turned and walked towards the back of the room. "Of course I expected that from Luke Cage, with parents like his. And Daniel's good to, after all you don't mess around with a guy who killed a dragon. He's a little weird maybe, but we can't do anything about that. Together they would be great, however there's just one issue with that…"

"They hate each other." Coulson finished.

"Exactly, a miss-understanding of course, but still. You can't work together when you hate each other, even if they are naturals. So, we'll keep an eye on them both, but do not engage until we're sure they can handle it."

Coulson nodded and turned back to the controls as Fury walked out the room.


	3. The invitation of a lifetime

**Hey, I'm back! With the first update of May. On with the story! Thanks to everyone who has favorited/followed and reviewed so far.**

**See chapter 1 for disclaimer.**

The third and last time they met was about two weeks after the second time. So it was now a month and a half since the first time they met.

This time was typically the one time Luke was looking for a night of. He'd been fighting crime every night that week and was frankly exhausted. However the one time he decided to sit down on a park bench was the one time he heard the sounds coming from a nearby ally way.

Getting up with a sigh Luke stretched, cracked his knuckles and slipped his sunglasses on. As he didn't have a costume those sunglasses where the nearest thing to it. He pulled himself together, got into his hero mind-set and ran off in the direction of the yelling.

He stopped at the top of the alley way, hardly daring to believe his eyes, it was Iron Fist again! Luke was seriously wondering if the guy had managed to plant some sort of tracking device on him, he couldn't think of any other reason why the guy always seemed to show up like a bad penny.

Once Luke had gotten over the initial 'Oh, I know that guy' thing, he saw Iron Fist was fighting Batroc the Leaper. And losing.

"K-YAH!" Iron Fist yelled, lunging forward.

"Ah-ah. No, no, that eez not nize, eez it not? I do not attack you, do I? I just merely want to rob theez bank." Batroc teased, easily leaping out the way.

"Not on my watch." Luke snapped, lunging forward himself.

"Oh! Two at once! Oh –" He ducked, leaving Iron Fist and Luke to punch each other in the face. Cue groans of pain and both staggered backwards, Luke holding his jaw and Iron Fist his nose. Batroc sprung back up, grinning impishly. "Oh dear, zot a shame! Neveeer mind, zee you lateer!" And with that he sprung of to the top of a building.

Meanwhile up on the Tri-carrier both Fury and Coulson, who were watching this scene, winced. "I can't believe that just happened." Coulson said, daring to sneak a peek. "Are we sure we want heroes who can't even beat Batroc the Leaper!?"

Fury nodded at that. "Of course we do. If they knew everything what would be the point of teaching them? No, we want amateurs, so we can train them into the new avengers. Now, put the Hellicarrier in invisibility mode and let's move in, once they've finished fighting we can speak to them."

Coulson saluted and started barking orders at agents.

Meanwhile down on the ground, Luke's jaw had stopped hurting quite so much and he looked at Iron Fist who was wiping the blood away from his nose with his costume sleeve. "Iron Fist, right?"

The other hero nodded and looked him over. "And I presume you are Power Man?"

Luke gave a confirmative nod. He paused and strained his ears, hearing Batroc's laughter echoing from the roof.

Iron Fist seemed to be reading his thoughts. "We can't get up there."

"Hmmm…we could….there's stairs inside."

Iron Fist shot him a look of pure despair. "Ten flights of them, yes. By the time we get up there he'll be gone…unless…Power Man….I presume you're called that because you're strong?"

"That's right."

"How strong?"

"I can lift a car, easy."

"Good, you'll have no problem lifting me then."

"What?"

"I want you to throw me to the roof, and then I'll fight Batroc and keep him busy while you run up to the roof and then we'll take him down, yes?"

Luke shot him a look. "You're willing to work with me?"

"Of course, we're both after the same goal aren't we? A problem shared is a problem halved as they say. Now, do it."

"Throw you to the roof?"

"Not to, on the roof, thank you, I would rather not be a pancake. Now, do it!" So, Luke did, picking the other hero up and throwing him straight to the roof.

Where Batroc was leaping around in glee. "I deed it, I robbed zee bank, I deed it, I robbed – agh!" He said agh because suddenly Danny had appeared from nowhere and wacked him to the ground.

As the two of them got to fighting Luke ran up the stairs, really wishing there was an elevator.

Meanwhile up on the tri-carrier Coulson was pretty much ecstatic. "DID YOU SEE THAT!? He threw Daniel to the top of a roof!? That was awesome!"

As Fury shot him a 'you're a professional' look, Coulson stopped and said instead. "I mean, yes, I think they would be good. They appear to have got over there hatred of each other at least."

"Hmm, I agree. I think there's still some miss-trust on Luke's side, but this shows they can work together…alright…we'll have them on the team. Put the tri-carrier at the side of the building, and then we'll talk to them, let's go."

Luke slammed the door open, out of breath and seriously considering going to the gym more often. He saw Iron Fist sitting casually atop the building, legs crossed in a meditation pose with Batroc unconscious next to him.

"Nice one." Luke said, honestly impressed.

"Thank you. Both for the compliment and your support, I could not have done it without you."

Luke scratched the back of his head at that. "Don't mention it…"

"Well if he hadn't, I would have." Both Luke and Danny jumped at that, before turning to see a guy in a black cape with an eye-patch walking towards them.

"Who're you?"

"My name…is Nick Fury."

Luke's eyes nearly fell out of his head. "Nick Fury!? As in Director of SHIELD, Nick Fury!?"

"The very same."

"Who?" Danny was confused, he'd never even heard of the guy before.

Luke shot him a look. "Did you not hear what I just said? He's Nick Fury director of SHIELD."

"What's SHIELD?"

Luke was about to explain when Fury cut over him. "Plenty of time for that later. Now, listen up, I want to create a team, made of five superheroes, I want to train them to become the best they can be, maybe even the new avengers. And I want you two to be the first to join me on this team. You will have a home. You will have constant meals, you will be trained. I'm not saying it will be easy because it won't. It'll be hard, gruelling hard work…but the rewards will be rich. Are you in?"

"Yes." Danny said immediately. Even though he was a billionaire and therefore didn't need to bother about constant meals and a home he longed for company. And he desperately wanted to improve his training, that was why he'd come here after all. Here was his chance on a golden plate and there was no way he was saying no.

Luke was considering. Years of living on the street made a home and food seem like luxury to him. And the chance to train properly seemed brilliant. Imagine, him, a next avenger and his parents had spoken of Nick Fury in the highest regard, he was the best. However there was one thing…Iron Fist. He'd have to live with him and train alongside him. Luke paused; to be honest the idea wasn't horrifying him. The guy seemed cool. "A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness." Echoed in his head, but it was dimmed now compared to the thoughts of everything else.

Luke jumped as he was elbowed in the side by Iron Fist. He paused, looked at him and then at Fury.

"Well then, Power Man. Are you in?" Fury looked straight at him.

This time there was no hesitation. "I'm in."


	4. A series of questions

**Hey! Thanks to Swansong, Evie Mcphey, Infinityworlds and Ninja of fallen sakura for reviewing, again, it means a lot. **

**Sorry for not updating for the past two weeks, but I've been on holiday.**

**See chapter one for the disclaimer.**

Luke barely had time to take in the fact that he was on board the 'Tri-carrier' as Fury called it before he was whisked away to a another room by fury, after a brief introduction to Coulson..

Looking around the massive room, Luke was impressed. "Where are we?"

"My office. Take a seat."

Luke did so hurriedly. "Where's Iron Fust?"

"In Coulson's office getting his de-brief." Fury explained. "Water?"

Luke drained it in one as Fury watched. Once he'd finished Fury started. "Right, here's how it's going to work. I'm going to ask you three questions. And I want you to answer them honestly. Think you can manage that?"

Luke nodded, although he was a little tense at the thought of a test.

"First up. What are your powers?"

Luke blinked. Was that it? He could answer that one easy. "I'm strong. I can easily lift a car, I don't break my bones easily, and I recover from illness pretty quick as well…"

"How quick?"

"I once broke my tooth and it healed within an hour, and a broken arm only last overnight." Luke said, with just a hint of pride.

"And…"

"I'm pretty agile, I can run pretty quickly. Well, when it's not up 10 flights of stairs…oh, and I'm invincible of course." He added that last one after a short pause; it had become so normal to him by now he almost forgot about it on occasions.

"Invincible?" Fury echoed, disbelievingly, raising an eyebrow.

"My skin is bullet proof."

"How do you know that?"

"I was shot at once; it got my arm but didn't go into the skin."

"Interesting." Fury said, deciding to gloss over the fact that his friends child had been shot. He had to keep a professional distance if this was ever going to work. He was the leader of a massive organization; he couldn't seen to be playing favorites. "And how did you get these powers?"

Luke paused, before replying. "My parents ship got attacked by Zodiac. They gave me some of this serum they'd been working on before telling me to jump of the ship. It must have given me powers."

Fury nodded, that sounded exactly like the serum Luke's dad had told him about before they disappeared. "Alright final question. Why do you want to be a hero?"

Luke answered immediately. "I want to help people defend themselves. I hate it when people just pick on others for the fun of it, if being a hero helps someone I'm all for it."

"Okay, now, do you think you can work with Iron Fist?"

Luke once again paused, momentarily thrown by the question. "What?"

"You heard me. Do you think you can work with Iron Fist? In order to be a team you need to get on. I know expecting you to get on every minute of every day is a bit too much to ask for, but you still need to be able to work together, do you understand?

"Y-yes. I thought you said there were only going to be three questions?"

"I changed my mind. Now, there was some hesitation there. Some stuttering. Why?"

Sweet Christmas, this guy would make a brilliant integrator Luke thought to himself, shuffling in his seat a little.

"Well…?"

"Just something he said when we met, it doesn't matter." Luke added, realising how childish he sounded and hating it. He hated immature people.

"Yes it does, because you two can't work together efficiently if you're still holding a grudge, now in a couple of minutes I'm going to let you out of this room and I want you to find Iron Fist and talk to him, got it?"

"Well erm…"

Fury shot him stern look. "That wasn't a suggestion that was an order, okay? I will lock you in a room myself if needs be, do you understand?" Obviously Fury wouldn't do that, but it seemed to get the point across to Luke who sunk back into his chair a bit and nodded sheepishly. "Good. Now go."

Luke did, suddenly aware of how sweaty he was. He walked straight out into the entrance to the tri-carrier where Iron Fist was sitting on the floor with his eyes closed.

The black one of the duo hesitated, mentally debating what to do and weather to call Fury and tell him that Iron Fist had apparently gone into a coma. However he was saved from embarrassing himself when Iron Fist opened his eyes and said in that calm voice.

"Ah, you're here. I was told by Coulson to wait for you. I was told we were to 'air out some grievances?"

"So Coulson give you the same talk?

"Yes. Now, what is the matter?"

"Erm…" Luke had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. He was a guy, guys didn't 'air out their grievances', they just didn't. Then again both Fury and Coulson were right; the team-to-be couldn't function if they didn't sort this out. "What did you mean when you said 'A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness?"

Iron Fist got to his feet, saying. "I meant that when we met you appeared to be annoyed about something, I was attempting to get you to talk about it."

"By insulting my strength?" Luke wanted to slap himself after that sentence. He sounded like a child!

Thankfully Iron Fist didn't seem to mind. "I was not insulting your strength I was referring to your fear of showing emotions and keeping them bottled up inside. It is not healthy, you should take time out each day to consider your emotions and let the stress of the day out. Have you ever tried meditating?"

"Is that what you were doing just?"

"Correct."

"Then no."

"Never mind. It is not for everyone."

Luke suddenly found himself smiling, being drawn to Iron Fists calmness and honesty. "Hey, if we're going to work together I think we should properly introduce ourselves. I'm Luke Cage." He subconsciously took his sunglasses of when he said that.

Iron Fist hesitated for a second before taking of his mask to reveal shoulder-length blonde hair that took Luke slightly aback. "I'm Danny Rand."

Luke gave a small frown at that, the name sounded familiar…however he pushed it to the back of his mind. "Cool. Hey how bout we go explore this ship? There's probably loads of cool stuff in here…"

Fury watched from the door of his office. After hearing them talk he nodded to himself before closing the door and walking back to his desk. They'd be alright…he was sure of it.


	5. Rocks, instructions and Brussels sprouts

**Hey! I'm back, with the last update of May. Hope you all enjoy! Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited or reviewed.**

**The eating quote is by Channing Pollock. BTW for those of you who are going to be having Brussel sprouts for dinner tonight, you may want to stop at 'You should know when to stop eating; and skip to 'So, how did that go?' Just warning ya. **

**See chapter 1 for disclaimer.**

"Director Fury." Coulson said, walking into Fury's office and shutting the door behind him.

"Yes?"

"I was just wondering when you're planning on doing Luke and Danny's initiation test."

The initiation test was not, despite its name, a test to see whether the person would get into SHIELD, it was a test to determine how good they were and where they needed improvement. It was a very good system, if Fury did say himself. [He invented it]

"Erm…how long have they been here?"

"A week."

"Ah, ASAP in that case. Actually…can you have the training room set up for tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"We'll do it then then. Tell Daniel and Luke to come to my office. Now."

Luke and Danny were in Luke's room. They weren't doing much; Luke was lazily lounging on his bed, flicking through a book Danny had insisted he read, occasionally pausing to munch on an apple. Danny was meditating. Luke knew by now not to interrupt him when he was mediating. He'd asked him if he knew where the bathroom was on the first day and nearly got his hand bitten of. Meditating was sacred to Danny he had quickly learned.

Which was why he was reading, to give himself something to do for the hour Danny was unavailable. The book was one of spiritual rocks. Luke had asked what the rock hanging round Danny's neck was and after learning it was called 'Solar Plexus Sulfur' had been given a book about spiritual rocks. He'd found the one and learned it was used for calming anxiety, anger, aggression and easing any type of increase in negativity. This went some way towards explaining Danny's attitude. Of course the more reasonable explanation is that it was just Danny's personality, influenced by the monks he trained with. Oh yeah, that was another thing he'd learned about his friend. He was raised by monks. Which was weird even by New York standards. The rock was also supposed to increase standards of concentration, optimism, quick thinking and confidence. Then again considering Danny had all of those traits maybe there was something to it…

Luke shut the book after feeling a headache come on. He didn't have time to ponder the mysteries of rocks.

The fact that he didn't know that much about Danny was fair when you took into account that he hadn't told Danny much about himself either, he didn't see the need. Unless he asked or the situation at hand required an explanation he didn't see what business it was of Danny's. He had a feeling that was the blonde's attitude as well. He'd seen a picture of a young Danny with two people which he assumed to be his parents, but so far the other hadn't mentioned them and Luke certainly wasn't going to ask questions.

"I see you've finished." He jumped as Danny got up. Obviously he'd finish meditating then.

"Yeah, found out more about that rock of yours. What does it do then? Give you powers?"

"Don't be ridiculous. It was given to me by the monks in order to help me with meditation. I technically don't need it anymore, but I keep it as a sort of a good-luck charm."

Luke nodded and chucked the core of the apple in the bin in a perfect throw. "Cool."

Then there was a knock at the door. "Luke?" Coulson. Luke hauled himself of the bed and opened the door. "Ah, Luke. And Daniel. Director Fury wants to see you both in his office right away." The two heroes' looked at each other before setting of.

Inside Fury's office they sat down, both feeling strangely subdued. Fury looked at them. "You two look petrified. Have a drink of water."

So they did, Luke gulped it down while Danny took careful sips.

"Do you boys know why I called you here?" They shook their heads. "Thought so. Each of our recruits goes through a test. A physical one." He added upon seeing the look of panic on Luke's face. "It's just a fight. We're just going to access your strengths and weaknesses."

"We already told you those." Luke pointed out.

"You told me your powers. Those aren't necessarily your strengths. Or weaknesses."

"When will the test take place?" Danny asked, before taking another sip of water. Luke looked down at his empty cup and wished he hadn't drunk it all.

"Tomorrow morning. 10 AM. I want you outside my office at that time, do you understand?" They nodded. "If you're not no one is reminding you or coming to get you. You miss the test and you may be kicked of the team. After all if you can't show up for a simple test, what does that say about your dedication to training?"

"Yeah, by the way when will that start?" Luke wanted to know, as Danny shuffled around a bit next to him.

"That depends on whether you come to the test or not, doesn't it? Now, get out of my office, dinners ready."

"Thank god, I'm starving." Luke said, closing the door to Fury's office as him and Danny left.

"How can you be starving? You've just eaten an apple."Danny said, looking at him with disbelief.

"My appetite always comes back after I get death talks from people."

"No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut." Danny quoted.

"Alright, what does that one mean?"

"You should know when to stop eating."

"Jeez, you're as bad as those health care professionals whose motto's seem to be 'Refuse chocolate, eat Brussels sprouts!"

"I don't eat Brussels sprouts."

"I do, they're nice."

"Are you joking? Eating Brussel sprouts is the equivalent of eating sick."

"Gee, thanks for that image Danny. I'm telling you now if we wind up with Brussel sprouts for dinner and I can't eat them because of what you just said; I am going to hit you." Luke warned as they turned into the canteen.

"So how did that go?" Coulson asked Fury as the latter locked up his office for dinner.

"It went well. They understood."

"Good…what on earth is that?"

Fury paused and strained his ears. He could hear the sound of yelling. Then Danny came running round the corner and nearly collided with Coulson.

"Daniel Rand! What on earth do you think you're doing!?" Coulson snapped as Fury raised an eyebrow.

"Luke…dinner…Brussel sprouts…"

"What!?"

"DANNY!"

"Oh god, here he comes, bye!" Danny ran off, just as Luke sprinted round the corner.

"Get back here! I can't believe you! You've turned me against Brussel sprouts forever! Oh hey Coulson, hey Fury. DANNY! GET BACK HERE!"

"No thanks! I don't wanna die!"

Fury and Coulson looked at each other in a manner that could only be described as 'dumbstruck'. Then they pulled themselves together and said at the same time. "Teenagers."


	6. The initiation test

**Hey! Now, I know I only updated yesterday but I'm updating today in order to fit in a bit with the storyline, as the initiation test in the last chapter takes place 'tomorrow' I'm updating today. I hope this is making sense.**

**Btw, I can't remember if during the team's first appearance they watched Peter's initiation test, I think they did as I think that was when Ava made her initial dislike of Spiderman known, but I'm not sure…anyone? Help?**

**I also can't remember if we were ever told what the teams scores where, so I made them up.**

**Once again, thank you to all those taking the time to review/favourite/follow my story. It does mean a lot. [You lot are going to be sick of hearing that soon aren't you?]**

**Anyway, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer and let's crack on.**

"Luke."

Luke groaned and turned a little.

"Luke!"

He waved his hand in a vague direction before turning back over.

"LUKE, WAKE UP!" That got his attention alright.

"Wha…" He murmured, sitting himself up and rubbing lazily at his eyes. He turned his head to be met with Danny's. There was a bit of a delayed reaction before he yelled and jerked backwards only to smack his head against the wall. "_Sweet Christmas_."

"Oh. Sorry, did I startle you?" Danny asked, with complete sincerity.

Luke stared at him in disbelief. "Yes. Of course you did, what's wrong with you? Who wakes someone by putting their face ten inches away from someone else's!?"

"I am truly sorry, I wasn't sure if I should shake you or not, so I just settled for saying your name." Danny explained.

"Well…next time just shake me. What the hell do you want anyway?"

"It's 9:00."

"Sweet Christmas! Are you serious!?" Luke leapt out of bed. "Dammit…I haven't even had breakfast yet…what time were you up?"

"I regularly get up at 6 to watch the sun rise."

"Right, so you do that and yet you didn't think to wake me up earlier than nine? We've got that initiation test in an hour and I still need to eat!"

Danny looked a little confused at that. "I'm sorry; I just assumed you didn't eat breakfast before training. I mean, it's generally not advised. You tend to get a stitch faster."

"I know that." Luke snapped as he yanked a top over his head. "But my power comes from my strength and in order to keep my strength up I need to eat a lot. Mainly fruit and carbs and things nutritious. I need to eat before training in order to keep my power up…"

"That…doesn't really make any sense."

"I know, but it's a system I have figured out, don't mess with it, okay? Let's strike a deal, I don't mess with your routines, you don't mess with mine. I'm taking it you're not eating then?"

Danny shook his head. "I think I'm going to go and train a bit."

Luke looked at him sharply at they left the room. "You've found a gym? Why didn't you let me know?"

"Because I haven't. I train in my room. I've been trained by the monks in all forms of martial arts, so it requires daily practice."

Luke was naturally sceptical. After all there were loads of forms of martial arts; Iron Fist couldn't have been trained in them all, surely? However his attention was caught when his stomach started rumbling. "Alright then. Fury's office at 10, right? See you there!"

So after having a very filling breakfast and then relaxing a bit afterwards to allow it to go down Luke got up and trundled to Fury's office where Danny was already waiting.

"You alright?" Luke said, nodding at him.

"Fine."

At that point the office opened and fury stepped out. "Good to see you. Keep it up like this and we're gonna get on just fine. Follow me."

Exchanging quick glances Danny and Luke did as they were told until Fury unlocked another door; they were shown into a small room with another door in the far wall. "Right, here's what's going to happen. Behind that door is your initiation test, you go one at a time, so the other will wait here. Coulson is timing you elsewhere. After you've finished he'll tell you and you'll go out of another door inside. Then you'll wait while the other person finishes there test in the exact same way. Any questions?"

Danny raised his hand. "Who's going first?"

Fury grinned. "You can, since you seem so eager. Go inside, Luke wait here."

Luke waited for what seemed like forever until finally Fury said. "You can go in now."

Luke stepped inside the rom nervously and then did a double take. It was empty. Completely empty. There was one door on the other side, but apart from that nothing.

"Power man, up here." Well that was what he thought. Looking up he saw Coulson waving at him from a control room and speaking into a microphone. "The test will start when I say so. Just do what comes naturally to you. I'll tell you when it's finished." He then pressed a button and then next thing Luke knew about 20 robots where gathered around him.

"Sweet Christmas." He said, looking around in amazement. He briefly wondered what Danny's reaction to that had been before one of the robots lunged at him and he got to fighting.

Meanwhile Coulson was drinking coffee and lazily watching Luke while the stop-watch recorded his progress.

"How's he doing?" Fury's voice cracked over the intercom.

Coulson gulped down his coffee and replied. "Pretty well. He's through two of them already."

"What's his technique?"

Coulson wrinkled his nose, studying Luke carefully. Then he said simply. "I don't know. Seems to be strike and hope you land a good hit. I think we need to train him in where to hit. And how much power to put in."

"He's defiantly strong then?"

"Oh yeah." Coulson agreed, watching a robot go flying past the screen. He took another sip of coffee. "Definitely strong. He's through five. But judging from what I'm seeing…well let's just say if he hits a person with the same force he's applying to the robots it'll be amazing if they live."

He heard Fury tut a little. "Ah, never mind. We still have time. How many now?"

"Seven. Oh, no wait." Another robot came flying past his screen, from the opposite direction this time. "Yeah, make that eight."

"He's making good time then. How did Daniel get on?"

"Good. He threw more coordinated attacks for definite. He aimed and struck where he knew it would hurt. He's good at throwing coordinated attacks, I'm not sure how good he is at spontaneity, but we'll see…"

"And Luke?"

"Well… Coulson jumped slightly as another robot hit the window. "Well, he's good. One thing I have noticed is that he's hitting harder with the robots than he is with people."

"Because he doesn't want to hurt them." Coulson heard Fury sigh. "We'll have to work on that. Not of course that I think he should be going around breaking people's necks but if a dangerous situation occurs he needs to use his power. All of it."

"Hmm. Oh, I should probably go now." Coulson added, quickly turning the timer of.

"Over and out Coulson."

Meanwhile Luke was on the ground, looking round at the robots collapsed next to him and feeling proud of himself. He'd done good. Now if Coulson would just hurry up and give him the all-clear…

"Good work, Luke. Go and join Danny. Myself and Fury will be down in a minute."

Luke went out the other door and joined Danny who's first question was. "So, how did you get on?"

"I got 'em all. Think I did it pretty quickly to. What 'bout you?"

"Same."

"We have your scores." Fury announced, as Coulson closed the door behind them. "Coulson?"

The other agent cleared his throat and said. "Daniel you did it in three minutes and forty-six seconds. Luke did it in three minutes forty-five seconds. Very close the pair of you."

The boys smiled, pleased with their scores.

"You're dismissed." Fury told them, walking back towards the door. "Go get some lunch, especially you Daniel, I know you haven't eaten anything today."

Danny looked appropriately taken aback. "How does he always know?" He wondered out loud as he and Luke walked off.

"Psychic maybe? Now, I have an important question."

"Yes?"

"Are you going to have salad or tomato soup?" Luke asked. Danny groaned and threw his hands in the air. "What it's a perfectly reasonable question!"


	7. A trip to the mall

**Hey! This chapter has been giving me such a headache. The amount of research and planning I had to put into it. On the bright side I now know more about Iron Fist than I did before.**

**Thank you to all my reviews and on with the story [See chapter 1 for the disclaimer]**

"Fury?" Coulson asked, rapping on the door.

"Come in!"

Opening the door Coulson saw his boss standing in front of a television screen watching a video of a team of hero's kicking butt. "Er…sir?"

"Ah, Coulson. Come over here. This is the Nova Corps. You may have heard the name."

"Yes…vaguely. Erm, are they a new recruit?"

"Not all of them." Fury paused it on the image of a small guy with a yellow suit and a helmet. "This one. He's called Nova, real name Sam Alexandra."

"You want him to join them team?"

"yes. However this is going to be a delicate matter. Rocket Raccoon isn't exactly known for being sweetness and light. I'm probably going to be in negotiations all day."

"What about Daniel and Luke?" They were now training once a week and had been getting along nicely.

"I'd thought about that. I'm going to send them on a bonding trip, to the mall."

Coulson crinkled his nose. "You're going to send guys to a mall?"

"Yes, for two reasons one I want them close to quarters. Second you can learn a lot about each other in a mall."

"Okay…do you want me to go and get them?"

"Yes please, Phil."

So five minutes later Danny and Luke were sitting across from Fury and Luke had a look of what can only be described as horror on his face. "A mall!? I...I don't usually go to malls, Fury. Even if they have got pretty good corn dogs."

"What's a mall?" Danny wanted to know.

"Ugh." Luke rested his head in his hands. "It's like hanging out with an alien. A mall is short for a shopping mall. It's a place people go to do their shopping."

"Ah, yes. I remember now."

Half an hour later they were walking in. "Welcome…to Midtown Mall." Luke said, imitating the voice of an announcer.

"Yeh, I know. I do remember, I just forgot."

"Kun Lun not has malls?"

"No. We grew our own food."

They mooched around for a couple of hours during which time Danny pointed out a shop that sold candles and incense and that kind of stuff.

Luke took one look at it and went. "I ain't going in there."

"If you truly want to change your life, you must first change your mind." Danny replied, walking into the shop. Luke sighed and followed him, understanding that his friend wanted him to give it a chance. He had of course seen incense and candles before, Danny's room was littered with them. When Luke had first walked in he thought he'd walked into SHIELDS flower shop by mistake the smell was so strong. After that he had gotten used to it.

"Try this one." Danny said, holding a candle up to his face. Luke sniffed it and gagged.

"What the hell is that?"

"Jasmine."

"No."

"Alright, what about this one?"

"What is it?"

"Lavender?"

"No." After about a minute of this Luke put his hand up. "Alright dude, stop. I don't like candles, I don't like incense and I feel like I'm about to collapse. Can we get out of here?"

"Just let me get the Jasmine one."

They stuck it out for another hour ad Luke brought Corn-dogs only to be reminded by Danny that. "I do not eat meat, my friend." No problem, Luke just ate the two dogs himself.

"Can we go now?" Danny whined, looking around. He wasn't used to so much noise and people, especially not crowded into one area.

"All right."

They'd almost made it to the exit when Luke suddenly turned and walked in another direction.

"Luke, the doors over there."

"I know, I've just seen something." Danny sighed before following him. Luke was standing outside the window of a sports shop, looking at a pair of black sneakers. That were 100 dollars.

"Do you want them?" Danny asked, standing behind Luke who was practically drooling on the glass.

"I defiantly wouldn't mind. But I can't have them."

"Why not?"

"To expensive. Who'd fork out 100 dollars for a pair of shoes? Danny? DANNY!" He'd turned back round and the blonde wasn't there. Luke panicked; this would be a fun call. 'Hey Fury don't freak out but I've lost Danny.' However Luke was spared when he turned back to the shop to see Danny talking to a girl at the counter.

"Really? He decided NOW is the time to pick up chicks?" Luke muttered under his breath following his friend in.

"Danny, now is not the time to pick up chicks. We have to get back."

Danny looked pretty offended at that. "I'm not picking up chicks. I'm…"

"Here you go sir." The girl came back, carefully placing a bag on the table. "$100 please."

Luke watched with amazement as Danny casually opened his wallet and handed the money over as if it were pennies. "Are you TRYING to get mugged!?"

"Here you go." Danny turned round and handed the bag to Luke.

"What's this?"

"You know the tradition is that you open it to find out."

Feeling slightly foolish Luke opened the bag only to almost drop it. The shoes were in there. He paused, before looking up at Danny and then launching himself at him. "Thank you!"

"Agh! Can't..breath…"

"Sorry." Luke let go. "How the hell can you afford this?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when we get back."

"So spill." Luke said, as they entered SHIELD headquarters.

Danny sighed a little, before launching into the explanation. "My father owned Rand Industries." Cue Luke mentally slapping himself, he though Danny's name sounded familiar.

"When I was younger I was something of a wayward child. My father's business partner thought it would be good if my parents took me on a holiday to the hilayers. While there my father fell off a cliff and begged his business partner for help. He refused and so crushed my dad's hands so he fell to his death. Unknown to him my mother and I witnessed the whole thing, so when he came crawling back explaining how father had 'accidentally' fallen to his death and offering to look after us my mother refused and led me of through the mountains with the intent of returning to civilization. Unfortunately we got lost and a wolf pack found us, my mother sacrificed herself to save me and I wondered around the mountains until Kun Lun, which comes to the himlayers once every decade, appeared and the monks found me and took me in, much to the resentment of my brother Scorpion. When I was 16 I was given a choice, come back here and embrace my destiny as head of the industry or become king of Kun Lun. I chose Kun Lun."

"You mean I'm talking to royalty?" Luke's eyebrows shot up. "Should I kneel?"

"Shut up. Anyway I defeated a dragon called Shou-Lao and earned the iron fist. I then made my hands stronger by plunging them into hot rocks and sand."

"Hold on a minute if you're king of Kun Lun, why are you here?"

"I was getting to that. I was given a year to say my goodbyes, instead I chose to train. I came here with the intent of doing that and wondered around for about 6 months not really doing anything. When this opportunity was given to me I explained to Coulson my predicament and Fury via Doctor Strange, who is a practitioner of magic, explained what he had offered to the monks who in turn allowed me to have a year of SHIELD training."

"So you're here for a year then?"

"Correct."

"Wow. Better make the most of it then, huh?"

Danny gave a faint smile and sat down on his bed. "What about you?"

Luke scratched his head. "Erm…my parents were scientist. They worked for SHIELD actually. They were transporting something when the ship was struck down. My dad gave me some of this serum they'd been working on before telling me to jump of the ship. That's what gave me my powers."

"Ah. And are they…"

"No idea."

"Hmm." There was a comfortable silence until Danny looked over. "Are you comfortable with this being known to others besides myself?"

"Well Fury already knows, and by extent Coulson probably does as well. I dunno. If the situation calls for an explanation or someone asks I'll tell' em. If not then I don't consider it any of their business."

"My sentiments exactly." There was a couple more minutes silence until Luke got up, stretched and then said.

"All this talk about pasts is giving me a headache. You want to get some tea?"

Danny shrugged getting up. "So long as it's not Brussel sprouts I'll be fine."

"Don't even go there Danny. Don't even go there."

**Danny's backstory is more along the lines of what happened in the comics, and I just thought I'd include it. I know it was never mentioned in 'Journey of the iron fist', so I thought I'd throw it in.**


	8. Nova

**Hey! I'm back! Thank you for all of my reviewers, including the guests. [Thank you Dianna] **

**On a side note I saw 'The curious incident of the dog in the night-time' at The Hippodrome yesterday night, brilliant! If any of you get a chance to see it you should go – it is amazing!**

**This chapter, as you may have guessed by the title, focuses on Nova, although Luke and Danny do show up as well [Obviously]. Word of warning, there is one swear word used by Fury in this.**

**Anyway, back to the story. **

"Phil." Fury's voice cackled over the intercom. Coulson, who was in his office, immediately said into said intercom.

"Yes Fury?"

"Come to my office, there's someone I want you to meet." Phil got up with a small smile. He had a feeling he knew who this 'someone' was.

Meanwhile Luke was waiting outside Danny's door. "DUDE! C'MON! I want breakfast sometime this century!"

"Hold on a minute my friend. You cannot rush perfection."

Luke banged his head against the wall. "Should I just meet you down there? Out of interest what do you monks live on? Cashew nuts? Salad?"

"Food, the same as you do. Normally fresh-grown food prepared by the chefs." Danny opened the door. "As a matter of fact the monks tend to have massive feasts at the end of every month to celebrate. It's just me who doesn't eat that much. It does not come naturally for me." He explained as he and Luke walked down the corridor. "Now Scorpion on the other hand loves food. Of course gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, so make of that what you will."

Luke looked down at himself, and then at Danny. "Thanks." He said, pointedly.

"I'm sorry my friend, I did not mean you. You have a legitimate reason for eating a lot. Scorpion doesn't."

"And Scorpion is…"

"My brother. By spirit not blood, although even that is now broken. He hates me." He explained further upon seeing Luke's questioning glance. "When I said I was leaving for America he was all too keen to throw me a going away party. Not because he's sorry I'm gone, but because he couldn't wait for me to leave. The party was good though. We had chocolate cake. That's my favourite."

"Well, I like chocolate to." Luke said, conversationally as they rounded a corner and collided with Coulson.

"Sorry boys, I'm just on my way to see Fury, are you two of to breakfast by any chance?" they nodded. "Thought so. Don't forget, training later on!"

Coulson reached Fury's door and knocked. "Come in!" he heard from inside.

Coulson entered and the first thing he noticed was that Fury wasn't alone. The boy from the video was there, with his back to him picking up objects on Fury's desk and examining them.

"Coulson." Fury nodded at him. "Coulson, this is is Sam Alexandra AKA Nova. Sam, this is Coulson, my right-hand man."

Nova turned to look at him, stared at him for a couple of seconds and then smiled widely and said. "Coulson! Awesome! That's cool, so when do I get to see my room? I'm taking it I do have my own room right?"

"Yes, all SHEILD cadets have their own rooms." Fury confirmed.

"Great, so when do I see it? Oh! Does it have video games in it? An arcade? Oh – what about a miniature fairground?"

Coulson paused and looked side wards at Fury who took a deep breath before saying. "It's a room, not a mansion. You get a bed, a side-bored which you can put things on and inside the dwares and you get a wardrobe and an en-suite bathroom. You're allowed to decorate the room how you please. Within reason." He added sharply as he saw Sam's eyes light up. "No arcade. Or fairground."

"Or videogames." Coulson added, only to be shot a look of 'Don't help' by Fury. Sam paused before shrieking.

"No _videogames_!? You're kidding right? But I **have** to play videogames! It's how I relax and how I keep my mind sharp! Hey – this level of intelligence does not happen overnight." He added, patting his head smugly.

Coulson was beginning to dislike this new recruit. "Now listen here…"

"You may have one video-game player with you and all of your games." Fury interrupted. "But I remain the same on the arcade and fun-fair. Not. Happening. Look – why don't you go down to the dining room and get some breakfast? I'm sure you must be hungry I'll give you the rest of the day to settle in."

As soon as Nova left Coulson turned to Fury. "You have got to be kidding me. He's so full of himself!"

"Coulson." Fury interrupted. "I know that. Now listen to me, I have been in negotiation with Rocket Raccoon for the last month and a half. Now he told me about Nova's…attitude problems and I told him we could handle it. Which we can. I'm hoping by the time he finishes training he'll have become a nicer person. This is why he's going to start training with Daniel and Luke today."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "Today? What happened to 'give the recruit time to settle in?"

"That won't work with Sam. He'll get board, and a bored Sam is not a good Sam to be around. So I'm starting him training today to get him used to regime."

"Luke and Danny aren't going to like him."

"I'm hoping he'll grow on them."

"What like fungus?"

"COULSON!" Fury barked, causing the man in question to flinch. "Look, I know he is not going to be the easiest person to train or just plain be around. I know that, but I have been in negotiations with Rocket Raccoon for a month and a half and I am NOT sending him back now. I assured Rocket we would look after him, train him and teach him to become a much nicer person. This is why I'm placing him in the same team as Luke and Daniel."

"You're hoping they'll rub of on him?"

"Precisely. Daniel has a strong sense of right and wrong and Luke doesn't take any crap from anyone. I'm hoping Danny will teach him morals and Luke will teach him that he can't be the dominant member of every team he's on."

"But he listens to Rocket?"

"Yes because Rocket is his mentor and he respects him. And I know he'll respect me and you as well. It's just team members I'm not sure about. But I am sure of one thing Luke – and Daniel – are not the sort of people to take stuff lying down. If there are two people who can knock some sense into him, maybe literally in Luke's case, it'll be him and Daniel."

Coulson paused considering this. "Yeah, you're right."

Fury gave a tired smile. "Aren't I always? So could you please get the training room set up for three? Include some air robots for Nova, please."

Coulson saluted and left.

Meanwhile Sam was checking out his room, he knew which one was his because it very convienantly had his name on the door. There was a long corridor with four rooms, one of which was his. The room opposite his had no name on and was completely bare. One of the other rooms had 'Luke' written on it and on the inside had weights, a couple of posters a pair of shoes by the edge of his bed and a bin by the door containing the skins/cores of various fruit. Sam wondered over to the weights, picked one up, nearly dropped it – geez how strong was this guy? - And with great effort lifted it onto the bed. He then left.

The other door, which was across from Luke's had 'Danny' written on it with a picture of a dragon and some words written in what looked like Chinese on the door. Inside was the weirdest room Sam had ever seen. There were candles everywhere, and sticks lying around. Sam picked one of them up. What the hell was this guy doing with sticks? Obviously he was a little we-ird. He picked up a few of the candles sniffing them. They stank. Horribly.

Just then there was a voice from behind him. "Okay, WHO are you and WHAT are you doing in my room?"

Sam turned to see a blonde boy, a bit taller than him, glaring at him with hard eyes and folded arms.


	9. How not to make a first impression

**Hey! I'm back! Thanks for the reviews, yeah NyanWolf, they're going to get along great….Sam has that calming effect on people as we all know. [Grins]**

**And TheImmortalWeapon, you may notice when you read the chapter that I used a couple of your ideas, especially about Sam not having his helmet on. [Spoilers for anyone else reading this apart from Immortal]**

**Finally Infinityworlds…you were right….**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Er. Erm…" Sam stammered, a bit taken aback.

Danny meanwhile was fuming. He'd come back from breakfast to find this…stranger in his room going through his things as if he owned the place! "I said, who. Are. You?"

"I." Sam said, putting the candle back and turning to grin widely at Danny. "Am Sam Alexandra, AKA Nova. And I'm taking it you are Danny?" he added, remembering the name on the door.

Danny nodded. "That's right. Sam, do you see this sign?" He opened the door a bit to show Sam the front of it, just as he heard Luke going into his room. He'd left him eating.

"Yeah. Cool dragon."

"Right…what does this sign say?" he pointed to the words below the dragon.

"Erm…no idea 'cos I don't speak gobble-gook."

"Oh." Danny did have to admit he sometimes forgot that not everybody had been taught the language of the Norse Gods. "Well, it says keep out. So get out."

"DANNY!"

Danny, looking surprised opened the door again as Luke burst through it.

"What were you doing in my room!?"

"I…wasn't?"

"Well someone was and I seriously doubt it would be Fury or Coulson."

"What about out new friend?" Something about the way Danny said that made Sam's skin crawl. The glare the blonde was shooting him also didn't help.

The other guy turned to Sam, eyes just about on fire. "Who the hell are you!?"

"I'm Nova."

"Well NOVA did you go in my room?"

"Well, yeah…"

"You should not disturb a man's sanctuary." Danny recited, as Luke turned purple.

"I only moved a weight, geez! And touched a candle….and picked up some sticks…"

"Sticks?" Danny questioned, looking genuinely puzzled.

"Yeah, these things." Sam gestured towards them.

Danny's eyes turned to steel. "You mean my incense? The thing that helps me meditate?"

"Er…yes? Why do you have so many anyway? It's a little we-ard." Sam said.

At which point Luke leapt forward and grabbed Sam's shoulders forcing him up against the wall. He'd just had enough of listening to this idiot talk…his voice sounded like grates.

"Luke put him down." Danny said, immediately, coming to the other side of Sam and putting his hands on Luke's arm trying to force it down. "This isn't doing any good…"

"I wanna hit him!"

"Yes, I can tell that. But it is the mark of a weak man who picks on those weaker than he is."

"What?" Luke said temporarily distracted, turning to look at his friend while Sam fruitlessly tried to get Luke's arms of his shoulders.

"Listen to me; he said he's joining this team, right? That means he's a superhero. Right?" Danny said slowly, Luke nodded. "So if he's a super-hero why isn't he using his powers to fight back?"

This was both true and a fact that Nova was very much regretting. He'd taken his costume of and put on civilian clothes the minute he went into his room. He only wore it for training.

Luke paused, taking the information in when he heard Fury' voice. "What the hell is going on in here? Is that Nova!? Luke – put him down! Now." He added sternly when Luke made no move. With an audible growl of frustration Luke released the obnoxious boy.

"Geez thanks Fury." Sam wheezed, clutching dramatically at his chest. "A leader can't have his team attacking him, can he?"

Luke's, Danny's and Fury's jaws hit the ground. Then the explosion happened.

"No, no way, if he's the leader then I'm leaving." Luke declared, fists balled.

"As will I." Danny said seriously. He seemed to regard Fury with a look that said 'I'm king of another world - I don't need this.'

"We'll set up our own business." Luke grinned and nudged Danny. "You and me – hero's for hire, yeah?"

"Sure."

"No." Fury said immediately. He had worked hard to get those two here and he was not about to let them out of his grip now, no matter how long he had spent in negotiations with Rocket this had to stop. Now.

"You are NOT the leader of this team." Fury told Sam. "You are going to be a member of it, NOT the leader of it, do I make myself clear?" A little intimidated, okay, a lot intimidated, Sam nodded.

Fury continued. "And I thought I remember telling you to go to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. This is not the cafeteria. You shouldn't even be in here, it's Daniels room."

"He went in mine to." Luke piped up, to be given a glare from Sam and a muttered 'tattle-tale' under his breath.

"You went in both of their rooms!? Right – this can't continue. You will go in your own room, no one else's. If you want to go in their room you will knock and wait to be told to come in. If no answer is given you will leave – do I make myself clear?" No answer. "I SAID DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?"

"Yes sir." Sam said immediately, saluting and then immediately wondering why he did it.

"Get down to the cafeteria and have something to eat." Fury said, still sternly but a little kinder than he had before. Sam nodded and all but ran from the room. Fury turned to his other two recruits. "You two alright up here?" they nodded. Fury himself nodded and ran his hand across his fore-head. "Great. I'll be in my office." He turned and left, black cape swishing.

Luke went to leave before Danny grabbed his arms. "Whoa, where are you going?"

"My room?"

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."

"What does that one mean?"

"Don't go to your room and just stew away, you'll just end up punching a wall or something and that will hurt no one but yourself."

"So what do I do?" Luke leaned against Danny's door frame.

"You can stay in here and help me re-arrange my things. Sam mucked them all up. After that how about I teach you to meditate?"

Luke instantly pulled a face. "That thing you were doing after Fury's welcome speech? Nu-uh."

"Oh come on, you might like it."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because this body is designed for punching things, not for becoming a flamingo." Luke said, remembering that standing on one leg thing Danny seemed to be doing every time he walked into his room.

"Just give it a go. Just once. If you hate it I won't ever ask you again."

Luke groaned, putting his head gently against the door. He was going to regret this. He knew he was going to regret this. "Fine."

**The above quote is not mine, and I don't know who originally said it. The above scene was thought out when I noticed that they first time the team gave their actual names to Spidey, Luke nudged Nova and he immediately did what he was supposed to. In fact he seems to insult Luke the least of all of them. My mind wondered why and came up with this.**


	10. He can fly?

**Hey! Thanks for the reviews! Again. So, here's the next chapter, hope you all enjoy.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer**.

"Times like this I hate my job." Fury moaned to himself, sitting down in his chair. "I'm supposed to be the director of SHIELD not a babysitter…what do they think I am a father-figure?"

"Are you alright, sir?" Coulson asked, opening the door.

"Fine, Coulson, just hating my job."

"One of those days, huh?"

"You could say that."

"Coffee?"

"Yes please…I'll need my own personal flask at this rate…what do you want anyway?"

"The training room is set up, air robots included." Coulson said proudly, and then winced a little as hot coffee spilt on his hand.

"Good. I'm glad we did Nova's induction yesterday…I am not in the mood to do it today. Thank Phil." Fury took a sip.

"So…what happened?"

Fury put the cup down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said. "Oh, just Nova being Nova, you know, I tell him to go to the cafeteria he goes into Luke and Daniel's rooms and starts moving their things around instead."

Coulson winced, "I bet they weren't very pleased."

"You could say that, luckily I was walking down the corridor otherwise Sam would be a goner. Luke had him up against a wall by his shoulders. Daniel was attempting to calm him down. Empathis on attempting." He took another sip of coffee. "Anyway I got Luke to put Sam down, resolved the situation and sent Sam of to the cafeteria."

"Will he go there?"

"If he doesn't want to die a painful death, then yes, he will." Fury growled finishing the drink.

"So what are Luke and Daniel doing now?"

"No idea. And personally I don't care as long as they aren't trashing the place…can I have another coffee please?"

Luke and Danny were not trashing the place; the only thing they were trashing was Luke's spine. Danny had tried to teach Luke to meditate

"How are you feeling?" Danny asked.

"Like an idiot. How is this meditation?"

"We're starting with basics."

"Danny, all I'm doing is sitting."

"The idea is that you empty your mind and enjoy being at peace with the world."

"Peace with the world? Are you serious? Have you seen this world? It takes all my self-control not to punch the world on a daily basis."

Danny frowned a little, emptiness temporarily forgotten. "What?"

"Nothing, I'm rambling."

"Focus on your breathing, in, out, in…"

"I'm fairly certain I can BREATH all right. Anyway all it's doing is making my back kill." Luke moaned.

"That's only because you're not used to it, it'll come with practice…"

"I'm not sure I WANT to practice" Luke said.

Danny mentally rolled his eyes and said. "Just humour me. Now, in, out, in, out, in…"

They kept on at this for about half an hour until finally Danny said to Luke. "That is enough for now, my friend."

"Oh thank god." Luke relaxed and immediately felt his spine flare up; it felt like someone was jumping on it. "That was basic? That? Basic!? My back is killing me!"

Danny gave a smile before explaining. "The idea is the more you practise the better you become until eventually it's not painful because you're body becomes more used to it. So, what do you think? Is that it or will you try again?"

"I'll get back to you on that one after I've had a bath. My spine feels like it's about to break. How are you not hobbling all the time?"

"As I said, you get used to it."

Luke did think about it. He thought about it while he was having his bath and while he was lounging on his bed afterwards. During this time he came to a decision. No. Nu-uh, not happening. Danny might find it comforting to contemplate emptiness on a daily basis but for Luke, and anyone with a grain of sense, it was painful, boring, and frankly something he was not willing to put himself through.

"LUKE! TRAINING! NOW!" He could hear Coulson's voice.

"S'allright" Luke murmured, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. He paused, had he really fallen asleep? He only meant to lounge on his bed for 10 minutes before going to lunch, not fall asleep. He looked at the clock. 4 O'clock. Great. He'd slept for four whole hours and missed lunch.

Cursing under his breath he flung the door open to be met with Danny. "How are you feeling my friend?"

"Well, my spine's better, so I suppose that's something."

"Have you made a decision?"

"Huh? What are you…oh right. Yeah, erm, no. I'm not doing meditation. Doesn't suit me, y'know? I like my spine the way it is now."

He didn't know what he'd been expecting Danny's reaction to be, but he was glad when he just shrugged and said. "Okay. As I said, it is not for everyone."

Coulson had finally dragged Nova out his room, dressed in what Luke assumed to be his super-hero outfit the new recruit looked nervously at the pair of them and then at the floor.

To be honest Luke was actually feeling a little bit ashamed of how he'd acted earlier; he'd just lost his temper. He had to get a handle on that. However he wasn't going to apologise, no-uh, no way.

However he forgot he had king of the peacemakers next to him. "Are you alright Sam?"

Sam looked up, surprised before averting his eyes to a nearby wall as they walked to the training room. "Yeah."

"What have you been doing for the past couple of hours?"

"Erm…just playing my videogames…"

That caught Luke's attention. He was about to ask Nova what sort of games he played when Coulson opened his mouth.

"Right, here's how it's going to work. Seeing as you boys don't know anything about each other's powers…"

"Well, we do." Luke interrupted, indicating himself and Danny,

"I meant you two don't know anything about Nova's powers and Nova doesn't know anything about yours. So what's going to happen is that I'm going to take two of you up to the control room and the remaining person will fight the robots down here, to give you all a chance to observe each other's powers."

"Who's going first?" Luke asked.

"You can. Daniel and Sam – with me." As the three other left Luke took his position, waited for the robots and then attacked them.

Up in the control room Nova's mouth was practically on the floor. "Is he just using his STRENGTH to do that?!"

Danny nodded. "Yes, that's why he's called Power Man. He's got better; when we started he just aimed blindly, now he throws more coordinated attacks and knows where to strike he's improved."

"But…that's just him? No alternative power source, no nothing? Just his strength?"

"That is correct."

Sam paused, considering this for a few minutes before saying simply. "Wow."

It was Danny's turn next.

"Do his fists always glow?" Sam wanted to know.

Luke nodded, cleaning his glasses. "That's his power source. Chi energy, mental energy."

"How'd he get it?" Sam asked, taking a sip of the water Coulson had given them.

Luke smirked a bit before answering. "Punching a dragon."

Sam spat his drink everywhere. "NO WAY!" He screeched, as Coulson glared at him. "HE PUNCHED OUT A DRAGON! THAT'S AWSOME!"

Luke frowned a little. "You know, I'm super-strong AND invulnerable."

"Yeah, but you didn't punch out a DRAGON! Wait – did you say invulnerable?" The two of them discussed Power Man's powers before Coulson, quite rudely in Sam's opinion, interrupted to tell Sam to stop talking and get downstairs now.

"This will be interesting." Danny commenting, filling Sam's empty seat.

"Mmm-hmm." Luke agreed, taking a cool, calm sip of water.

Sam grinned as the robots sprung up around him and grinned. This was going to be easy-peasy. He flew up and began.

Meanwhile in the control room.

"He can fly!?" Luke spluttered. "Now that is cool!"

"I can see why he would be useful." Danny said, smiling. "Having someone who could fly would certainly have been useful when dealing with Batroc…"

Luke shot him a look. "It would?"

"Well, look at him." Danny said, exasperatedly as Sam flew a robot into the wall. "He could have flown up to get Batroc while us two went up the stairs."

"Well, I think we dealt very neatly with Batroc zee leepeerr, without him, thank you very much."

"Through sheer fluke. If Batroc had had run instead of gloated then we would have been useless."

"Precisely." Coulson interrupted. "That's what Fury thinks to. Hark why he purposely sought out someone who could fly. Of course there's not a lot of those on earth, so we had to look in space."

Both Luke and Danny paused, looked at each other, and then back at Coulson. "Space!?"

"Yeah…oh, did you not know? I think you should ask him about it. Anyway let's go." Coulson added, seeing Sam had finished.

After the three recruits had congratulated each other and Coulson had left, Luke looked at Sam. "So…you like playing videogames?"

"Yeah!"

"Which ones have you got? I like playing them as well."

"Er – which ones haven't I got?! What about you Danny?"

Danny rubbed his arm a bit sheepishly. "I have not played that many videogames…"

"DUDE!" Sam screamed. "You HAVE to play videogames! Right – come with me, we're playing – now." And together the three of them walked off.

"I think that went well." Coulson said, closing the door of Fury's office. "They seem impressed by each other."

"Good." Fury said distantly, looking at the screen.

On it was a girl wearing a white outfit leaping around; she had a necklace around her neck and a thick black pony-tail. "Who's that?"

"White Tiger, AKA Ava Ayala. She's the new White Tiger now her father's dead."

"Her father's dead?"

"Yes, you don't keep up to date with SHIELD news, do you?"

Coulson scratched his head sheepishly. "No…"

"Anyway, I'm going to try and locate her. It may take a while though…"

Coulson nodded and left Fury alone with his thoughts.

**Quick authors note here, or rather authors question, should I include Daredevil in this? I know he used to be the leader of the team, which is why I'm debating it, but would that be too confusing? Plus I'm not really sure if I could write him in character seeing as we only saw him for one episode and he was a little bit crazy….thoughts please!**


	11. White Tiger and Video Games

**Hey! Sorry for not updating to a good couple of days, but I've been a bit busy and had a 'where the heck do I take this story' moment, as TheImmortalWeapon, NyanWolf and Infinityworlds know.**

**To you three, I've taken all your answers into account and have combined them to make the next couple of chapters, or 'the Ava arc' as I've christened it. This is the end of the 'Nova' arc and the beginning of the 'Ava' arc, hope this is making sense.**

**The diplomacy quote is by Daniele Vare**

**Anyway, enough of my rambling see chapter 1 for the disclaimer and let's crack on.**

"Director Fury." Coulson said, opening the door to Fury's office. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay."

"We need to do something with Danny, Luke and Sam, you see they…"

"Okay."

Coulson frowned. "Director Fury, sir? Are you listening to me?"

"Hmm?" Fury turned away from the screen. "Oh, sorry Coulson. Ava Ayala has been driving me mad, two months I've been trying to talk to her and every time I try she runs away! It's like…well. It's like trying to catch a cat."

"Why's she running?"

"Her father was killed by the infamous Kraven the Hunter. I think she's a bit wary of anyone trying to get to close just in case they're one of Kraven's men."

Coulson frowned. "He hasn't got 'men'; he's a sola act, isn't he?"

"Yes, but she doesn't know that. Anyway, what did you want?"

"Right." Coulson snapped to attention and took out his notes. "We need to do something about Luke, Danny and Sam, it's been two months and they're literally killing the robots! Even on the highest setting!"

"Well, take them outside then, let them jump around on the building…hold on a minute, didn't we have this conversation last month?"

Coulson nodded. "We did, you said the exact same thing then, so I took your advice. They picked it up pretty quickly and are enjoying it, which is always a bonus. But there's only so long you can attack robots and leap around on buildings for."

Fury raised an eyebrow. "So, what are you suggesting?"

"I think we should send them on a mission."

Fury looked a bit confused. "What? You mean like a bonding trip? That won't work; they've already bonded, haven't they?"

Coulson nodded, again. "Yes sir, they have. This is why I'm suggesting a mission. Not anything to high-profile, obviously, but just a little simple mission."

Fury scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, that could work…mmm…I could get in contact with the Avengers, see if they've got anything they need help with."

Now it was Coulson turn to raise his eyebrow. "The AVENGERS? Are you sure that's a good idea? They're only rookies."

"Well, they wouldn't be doing any of the actual fighting, maybe like…heavy lifting or something? I'm not sure, it's only an idea. No, I'll have a play around with that, thanks Coulson."

"Welcome…so…what's happening with Miss Ayala?" He asked, glancing at the screen.

Fury groaned and put his head in his hands, massaging his temple. "I think I'll leave her."

"You'll LEAVE her?"

"Look Phil, there's only so many times you can go after one recruit. And they're all different, you get some like Danny and Luke who are only too eager to join, there's some like Nova who have to be arranged and there's some who have no intention of joining. There's some who initially say no, but then change their mind and join later, or some who are eager to join and then have to leave because it just doesn't work out. Then of course there's some who break from the pressure. Every hero is a different kettle of fish, and with Ava – she clearly doesn't want to talk, I understand her reason but we CANNOT go running after one hero when we have others that need our attention."

"So, that's it? You're giving up?" Coulson was very surprised; Fury had a reputation for never giving up.

"Well, no not completely, I've attempted to talk to her three times over two months. If I try again she'll slash my face, so I'll leave it a bit. Maybe try again in a couple of weeks. I'll focus on the others and when they're okay, then I'll turn my attention back to White Tiger."

Coulson nodded in agreement. "That sounds reasonable."

Fury gave something between a scoff and a laugh. "Well, I'm glad you approve. Where are the boys now?"

"Last time I checked they were in the chill out room."

"Okay, we'll leave them there for now. Trainings not for another hour and a half anyway, put the kettle on, Coulson."

Meanwhile in the chill out room Luke was watching the football and Danny was lounging on the sofa with his headphones in, waving his hand around like he was conducting a band.

They remained this way in comfortable silence for five minutes until someone came in; Luke turned his head to see Sam standing in the doorway with an excitable smile on his face. Luke inwardly groaned, he knew by now that smile meant trouble.

"Danny!" Sam said, walking over towards them. Luke gave a small smile of relief that Sam didn't want him before turning back to his game.

Danny, due to the fact he had his headphones in, didn't hear Sam. So after a further two yells Sam settled for shaking Danny's shoulders from behind, Danny automatically jerked his elbow backwards catching Sam in the face.

Danny heard Sam's shrikes of pain and quickly took his headphones out and looked behind him. "Are you alright?"

Luke, who had also turned around when Sam yelled, gave a shout of laughter at that. He'd pieced together what had happened.

Sam held the bridge of his nose to stop it bleeding and glared at the blonde. "Just peachy."

"I am truly sorry, what did you want?"

Sam's glare faded and was replaced by a smile. He had a tendency to switch from anger to happiness, Luke and Danny had discovered, one minute he'd be laughing along with you at a joke, the next he'd had taken offence to it and be all up in your face. Of course that didn't happen that often since after the first time he did it to Danny he'd hit him to the ground.

"I want you to play a video-game with me."

Danny groaned, hitting his head on the arm of the chair and Luke knew why. The first time they'd played Danny, despite never having picked up a controller in his life before, listened carefully to the tutorial Nova gave him, played one game for practice and then proceeded to smash all of Sam's records. Since then Sam had been challenging the martial-arts champion to game after game after game.

"C'mon please?"

"No." Danny muttered to the chair.

"Please?"

"No."

"Pllllleeeaaassseee?"

"No."

"Pretty please with a dash of sprinkles and a cherry on top?"

"No!"

Sam paused for a minute, but never one to give up started jumping up and down going. "Please, please, please, please, please." For what felt like forever until eventually Luke had had enough. Danny might have the patience of a saint, but he certainly didn't.

"Danny for Christ sake, give him a game before I punch him in the face!"

"Yes! Give me a game before Luke punches me in the face! Hey – wait a minute…" Sam stopped jumping after realising what he just said.

"Yes, okay, I'll play a game with you." Danny said, not wanting another Sam-Luke argument to start. He'd had enough of those during the first week to last him a lifetime.

"Great! Let me just set it up…" Nova started fiddling around with the video-game station, which was thankfully on a different telly to the one Luke was watching the football on.

As Sam and Danny got playing Luke tried to concentrate on the game, however that was difficult with Sam in the room. After about two minutes Sam went.

"Oh yes! One point to the master!"

'About time you got one' Luke thought, eyes glued to the screen.

"Yes! And again! Win-ner!" Luke turned his head slightly at that, Danny didn't usually lose this many times in a row, never mind, he must be having an off day. Luke turned back to the screen.

"Oh-oh! And again! I am on fire!"

Okay – now there was something going on, Luke decided fully turning away from the game to focus on his friends. He watched as Sam scored another point. If he got one more he'd win.

"YES!" Sam leaped in the air, fist-pumping the air as he did so. "I WIN! I am the champion, I am the champion, you are the lo-ser, I am the champ-ian! Luke gimme five!" He ran over, grabbed Luke's hand and high-fived it before running out the room whooping and cheering.

"Luke? My friend? Are you alright?" Danny asked in concern, waving a hand in front of his face.

Luke blinked and jerked backwards a bit. "You lost."

"Yes."

"You lost!"

"Yes."

"Wait – you lost?"

"Yes Luke, I lost!"

Luke paused, thought it over and came to the only logical conclusion. "You let him win, didn't you?"

"I just tried a little diplomacy."

"Diplomacy?"

"Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."

Luke mulled that over. "How does that work?"

"Well, the reason Sam was challenging me is because he never won, so I let him win, in such a way that it didn't see like I did. I did score two points so it looked like I was trying. Now that Sam has won in what he thinks is a fair way he'll stop challenging me – you'll see." Danny explained, with just a hint of a smug smile.

Luke grinned back. "You know, for a peacemaker you can be downright cunning sometimes."

Danny put his headphones back in. "In order to be a peacemaker you need to know how to resolve situations without having the people you're trying to calm down turn on you. It requires a certain degree of cunningness, yes."

Luke grinned again and went back to his game as Danny resumed listening peacefully to music.


	12. And the mission is

**Hey! I'm back! Hope your all had a good week and let's crack on with the next chapter.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

Coulson was sat behind his desk, looking over Luke, Danny and Sam's progress record. They were improving definitely. Coulson put his head in his hands and groaned, if they kept this up he'd have nothing else to do with them.

"Coulson." He heard Fury's voice and looked up to see him walking through the door.

"Hello Fury." Coulson mumbled, before realising what he said and immediatly launched into action. "Oh, Director Fury! Erm, what can I do for you?" He asked, feeling a mix of panic and excitement. Fury only ever came into his office if something big happened.

"I've spoken to the Avengers. They're happy to help, congratulations, Phil that was a good idea of yours."

Coulson's mind went blanks. "Erm…"

"Fury was staring at him. "The mission? For Luke, Daniel and Sam?"

"Oh yes! You've got it sorted then? Good…what is it?"

"Round the recruits up and bring them to my office and you'll see." Fury said, dryly leaving.

Coulson hurriedly got up and made his way towards the recruits' rooms. He was surprised Fury had managed to get it together so quickly, it had only been a week since the suggestion. But then again, he should be used to the unexpected by now. He did work for SHIELD after all.

He stopped outside Sam's room and banged on the door. "Sam? Sam! SAM!"

"Yeah?" Inside his room Sam was lounging on his bed, video-game in hand currently attempting to annihilate his own high-score.

"Director Fury wants you in his office."

"Yeah, gimme a minute."

"No – NOW!" Coulson heard himself bellow.

Inside Sam almost dropped the controller, hurriedly turning it off and shoving it under his pillow; he grabbed his helmet and costume and ran out the door. "Here sir." He said, saluting.

Coulson nodded before marching over to Luke's door and rapping on it. He was about to yell, but was spared the strain on his voice by Luke, who had opened the door.

"Heard you yelling at Sam. Thought I'd get a move-on." Luke said easily.

Coulson nodded his thanks and walked over to Danny's door, as Luke elbowed Sam, who was rolling his eyes, in the side.

"Daniel?" Coulson asked, tapping on the door. When he got no reply he tapped harder. "Daniel!" Still no reply. Luke and Sam exchanged glances as Coulson pounded on the door. "Daniel, director Fury wants you in his office now! DANIEL! DANIEL RAND!"

"That's weird." Luke said, frowning. "He always opens his door. "

Coulson, having had enough turned the handle and barged in. Danny wasn't there. "Either of you two know where he is?" Coulson asked, rounding on his other two recruits, who both shook their heads.

Great, this would be a fun call to Doctor Strange 'Hey doctor I need you to go to Kun Lun and explain to the residents that we've lost their king – thanks!' That would NOT go down well.

The Luke snapped his fingers. "Oh – I know where he'll be."

"Great. Go get him and then come to the office – Sam, with me."

As Sam was dragged of, Luke followed his instinct and sure enough Danny was in the chill-out room, headphones in. Remembering what had happened to Sam Luke walked round the front of Danny and waved at him. The blonde looked mildly surprised and took his headphones out.

"Hello Luke, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Coulson, however, is currently blowing his top."

"Why?"

"We're needed in Fury's office, now. And obviously we couldn't find you..."

"Apologises, I was in deep mediation."

"Don't tell that to me, tell it to Coulson."

"Apologies, I was in deep mediation." Danny said, immediately upon entering Fury's office.

"Bout time you two got here. Now, listen up, I have a mission for you."

"Yes! At last!" Sam cheered, punching the air. Next to him, Luke and Danny high-fived.

"The mission." Fury said loudly, to get their attention. "Is to lift dynamite."

"Dynamite?" Coulson, Sam, Danny and Luke said together.

"Yes, the Avengers are fighting the Fightfull Four downtown. The four are trying to steal some dynamite, what for we have no idea, but that doesn't matter. The Avengers are going to do the actual fighting, you three will be lifting the boxes of dynamite out of the store-room they're in and moving them up to the heli-carrier. "

"How are we supposed to get it up?" Luke asked.

Fury looked at him. "That's the beauty of having a team-mate who can FLY. Nova will fly the boxes up and you and Daniel will lift them out of the back of the store room to the abandoned car-park behind so you don't attract the attention of the four. Now – go."

As the three recruits ran of Coulson turned to lokat Fury. "DYNAMITE!? DYNAMITE!? Are you nuts! It's there first mission, is dynamite really the best option? Plus putting Sam in the same room as anything that has the capability to explode, doesn't seem the best option to me"

Fury sighed. "Look Coulson, this was the only thing Captain America had to offer me. I had to take it."

"Yes but, dynamite? Why not send them on a mission to one of our islands?"

Fury's eyebrows shot up at the ludicrously of his top agents suggestion. "One of our ISLANDS!? Are you mad? Why don't I just send them into a pit of fire? I am NOT putting those three anywhere near one of our classified islands; can you imagine the havoc they could do? No, this is better."

Coulson paused and considered arguing further before giving up. "Whatever you say sir."

"Good, now go and tell the agents to get a room ready for the dynamite."

Coulson saluted. "Yes sir." And left.


	13. The Frightfull Four Part 1

**Hey! I'm back, sorry for the delay, have been quite busy lately. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer. **

"Are you clear on what you have to do?" Fury asked, for the 1,000th time.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Get the dynamite, fly it up to the tri-carrier, give it to Coulson and don't blow anything up. Simple."

Fury nodded. "The Avengers are down in the town." He said, pointing. "The Frightful Four are on their way. Get going, and don't mess up."

"Are sure we can't meet the Avengers?" Sam whined.

"Maybe afterwards. Now however, go pick up the dynamite."

Luke snorted quietly, saying to Danny as they turned away. "Only SHIELD would be instructing teenagers to go play with dynamite."

"YOU'RE NOT PLAYING WITH IT!" Fury yelled after them, before turning around and leaving.

They found the dynamite easy enough and all three worked together to move it into the car-park. Eventually there was no space left.

"Shall I fly it up now?" Sam asked eagerly.

Danny shook his head. "Patience is a virtue."

Sam started blankly at him. "What?"

"No." Luke translated, bluntly. "Fury said wait until the sound of fighting, then the four's attention will be distracted."

"But it's boring!" Sam whined, before getting up and walking around on top of the boxes. Luke and Danny got a full minute of peace until. "Hey! Do you reckon if this all blows up we could do that cool thing with the shades?"

"What cool thing with the shades?" Danny questioned. Next to him Luke face-palmed. Now he'd done it.

"You know! In movies whenever the building blows up the characters do that cool thing when they walk away in slow motion and look awesome!"

"If that happened in real life we would not be walking away looking cool with shades on, we'd be running away, looking like head-less chickens with our shades on the floor abandoned." Luke said, dryly.

Sam opened his mouth to retort when they heard the unmistakable roar from the Hulk in the background. They exchanged glances and Luke said to Sam. "Give it a minute and then go."

Sam nodded, waited the longest minute of his life and then grabbed a box of dynamite and flew up.

"Let's go." Luke said, turning to Danny only to find he'd gone back in the building to get more dynamite. "One step ahead of me as per usual." He mumbled under his breath.

Meanwhile over in the town there was a smack down going on. Fists were flying everywhere, hero's and villains were being flung against walls, pedestrians were screaming and in the middle of all this the Trapster glanced upwards to see a figure carrying a box flying upwards and then disappearing from view. He paused, doing his best to observe while avoiding being punched in the face by Captain America. Once he managed to get a clear-ish view however he recognised the box. Dynamite. Their dynamite.

With a growl of anger he punched Captain America in the face sending the hero reeling backwards and ran off at top speed.

Meanwhile back inside the building Power Man and Iron Fist had a system going. Luke would lift the boxes and hand them to Danny who would the walk outside and leave them for Nova. This was going quite well and by now they had shifted at least three-quarters of the stuff.

"Fury is gonna be so pleased when we do this right." Power Man said, handing Iron Fist another box. "We might even get him to smile." He remarked, turning back round.

"Hmm." Iron Fist quietly replied. Power-Man un-wedged another box and turned back around, only to find his friend hadn't actually moved.

"Er, Fist? Not to sound whiny but you're kinda ruining the little system we have here."

"There is something not quite right here." Was the reply he got.

Power-Man frowned, putting the box down. "Please don't tell me you're getting sick. That's the last thing we need…"

"No, I mean a chemical in-balance. I can sense it in my chi-energy."

"Fist, relax. We're doing a good job, we're shifting this stuff quickly, and even Nova seems to be getting on alright. There's nothing wrong."

"EY!" The two heroes turned to see the Trapster standing in the door-way, glue-gun behind him and cracking his knuckles aggressively. "What the 'ell do ya think you're doin' with that!?"


	14. The Frightful Four Part 2

**Hey! I'm back! Sorry for the cliff-hanger last time, I just thought I'd leave it there. [Smiles] Anyway, so here's part 2, hope you all like it. **

**For those of you who are a bit squeamish, you might not like reading about Trapster. I suggest you stop at 'I win' and go to 'Eventually the silence was broken by Luke'**

**Anyway, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

After the Trapster's entrance Luke and Danny looked at each other then at the Trapster and then back to each other, both slightly panicking a bit. They hadn't expected this.

Eventually it was Power Man who broke the silence. "Er…Damage Control?" He offered weakly.

"Yeah, nice try, kid…ey!? 'oos that!?" While looking primarily at the intruding hero's he'd seen movement in the background.

Power Man and Iron Fist were temporarily confused before the light clicked. Nova. He was still outside moving boxes; the Trapster must have seen him.

And now the guy was about to do something about it, he took the gun of his back and aimed it at the door. Iron Fist, on the ball as always, quickly threw the box of dynamite he was holding at said Trapster and it whacked him in the face, causing him to lose his aim and hit the ceiling. Taking his partners cue Power Man threw his box as well, catching the bad guy in the stomach.

Automatically they ran outside, to see Nova already flying off; blissfully un-aware he'd almost been glued. A quick glance later and the brawns of the duo picked Iron Fist up and aimed him at the top of a building.

Just as he let go thought, Luke felt something encase his feet and looked down to see glue all around him like a sticky sea. 'Great, just great' he thought to himself, trying and failing to pull himself free.

The Trapster sauntered past him, apparently recovered from the boxes, and smiled. "Thanks for standing still, kid." He said, with un-nerving kindness. "It makes my job a lot easier." And with a laugh that could rival anyone's he sauntered of, leaving Power Man to curse to himself and try to pull himself free.

Nova on the other hand, was having a great time; he was flying through the air, helping to save the day and feeling like a god. He could so feel the adrenaline pumping through him. He gave the box he was holding to Coulson before flying back down.

On the way however he saw Danny standing on top of a building waving both arms at him. Realising something was wrong Sam took a detour and landed next to him.

"What's up, fortune cookie?" he said, impishly.

"The Trapster's what's up. He's found us moving the dynamite and is currently attempting to glue us to the wall." Iron Fist explained.

"Really!? Awesome!"

Iron Fist shot him a look. "You have to be careful what you wish for. What you think you want, may be more than you can handle."

"What does that mean?"

Danny didn't have time to answer before a voice interrupted them. "Are you serious!?" Trapster had got the elevator up to the roof and was now standing in the doors, with the grin of a maniac. "You're like sitting ducks! Oh – Christmas has come early!"

"Nu-uh! Christmas has come early for us, because we're gonna kick your ass!...Yeah!" Sam said, doing his best to sound tough.

The Trapster grinned wider and aimed the glue-gun. "We'll see 'bout that." He fired and Nova sharply flew upwards and Iron Fist leapt to the side as a bullet of glue whizzed past them and stuck to the next building.

Power Man was still trying to get unstuck. He kept glancing up at the top of the building, afraid he'd see Danny or Sam come falling of it. Instead he saw a white glob of something shoot of the building top. Frowning he forced himself to calm down and use his brain. He was stuck in glue. Glue could become un-stuck if the right amount of force was used. He had already tried to get both feet unstuck, but then a flash of inspiration came to him, so blindingly obvious he felt like smacking himself. He lifted one leg and struggled against the glue until…yes! He felt it loosening a bit and carried on until eventually with a sort-of pop the foot came unstuck and he almost fell forward, but just managed to catch himself. Placing his unstuck foot on a spare bit of non-glue covered tarmac Luke cleverly repeated the trick with the other foot until that to was free. That time he did actually fall over. Recovering within seconds he got up and ran towards the entrance of the building, hoping to get his fist in the Trapster's face pretty sharpish.

Meanwhile from the window-ledge of the next building White Tiger watched the scene with interest. She had been about to go down and help the black guy out until he figured out a way to do it himself and she now turned her attention to the fight on the roof-tops.

From the Trapster's first initial shot there was now a show-down going on as Iron-Fist and Nova jumped/flew around him hoping to A} dis-orientate him enough so he forgot he had a weapon and B} force him to fight physically which they'd already clocked, he wasn't very good at. After flying round him a couple of times Nova flew forwards and hit Trapster with both fists in his shoulders, causing him to fall heavily to the ground. Hearing a 'Ky-ah!' He looked up to see a green foot flying towards him, but never one to lose easily the Trapster leapt up, grabbing Iron-Fists foot as he did so and spun him around before letting him go.

Luke had made it to the elevator and was currently going up in it, foot tapping impatiently during the whole 30-second journey. Hearing the ding he charged straight outside without a second thought, only to be hit, literally, with the green-clad body of Iron-Fist. He fell straight down on his back, with his team-mate sprawled over him.

Now Nova was actually panicking a bit, although he'd never admit it of course, Both Power Man and Iron Fist were down, it was up to him. 'Come on, Sam, you can do this' he thought to himself before charging in for the attack.

It was just a shame he used the same attack as before, because Trapster saw it coming immediately and using the glue-gun encased his middle with glue, and casually swung him to the floor.

"Hah!" Trapster chuckled darkly, admiring the glue-gun as one might a trophy. "I win." He said, smugly putting the gun back in its holder.

No sooner as he said those words though he felt the leather of the holder press into him and frowning rescued his gun, looking at it bemused as it leaked glue from three, narrow rips in the metal. But that was stupid, what could possibly rip through metal? Then next thing he knew he felt a searing pain as the muscles in his jaw tore and he fell to the ground, not dead, but in a severe amount of pain.

Luke, Danny and Sam were amazed. They'd just seen this white-blur appear from nowhere, do something to Trapster's gun, leap casually to one side, just narrowly avoiding Nova's head, and then leap back and slash Trapster's face open. They had nothing to do but gawk.

Ava was currently feeling very proud of herself. Seeing the trouble those boys were in, she'd leapt in to help, slashing the back of the bad-guys gun so he couldn't do anymore damage and then slashing his face for good measure. She looked at her nails and frowned, she could see bits of skin under them. She was SO going to need a shower…

Eventually the silence was broken by Luke. "Iron Fist?"

"Yes, friend?"

"Can you get of me?"

"Of course, sorry." Iron Fist got up, subconsciously monitoring his breathing to calm himself down and helped Power Man up.

Nova didn't need any help and was already on his feet, grinning widely at the girl. "That…was…AWSOME!" He screeched.

She looked at him, a little bit of alarm clear from her body-language. "Who are you?"

"I'm Nova! And that's Power Man and that's Fortune-cookie!"

"Iron Fist." The blonde said, dangerously.

Nova waved a hand. "Potato, patata. What's your name?" He directed the question to the girl, who regarded him for a second before saying, with just a hint of reserve.

"White-tiger."

"Cool name!"

"Thanks." She showed just a hint of a smile, before turning sharply away from Nova and directing her next question to Iron-Fist. "Are you all a team then?"

Before Iron-Fist had a chance to answer, Nova was speaking. "Yeah! We work together, we're a team! We work for SHIELD, have you heard of it?" White Tiger shook her head.

Nova continued. "It's awesome; it's a top-secret organisation which triains super-hero's…"

"Nova, do we need to have another conversation about the meaning of the words top secret?" That was Fury, who had materialised behind Luke and Danny and was frowning straight at Nova, clearly not impressed.

"But she's one of us! Look at her!"

"No she isn't, she isn't a member of SHIELD." Fury said, trying to keep collected. He recognised White Tiger, of course he did and by the look on her face she'd recognised him to. "And I want a word with her, so you three go finish getting the dynamite. Just 'cos you were interrupted doesn't mean you're off the hook."

As the boys skulked of Fury regarded the other hero, who looked like she was trying to decide whether to hit or run. "Hello, Ava. Do you remember me?"

She nodded. "You're the man who's been following me." She accused. Fury winced, that didn't sound good. But he still nodded.

"Yes I am. I know about you, Ava Ayala, AKA White Tiger. I know you're father died a couple of months back and I am truly sorry for your loss. I know you've been on the streets since then because you have no other family to take you in. I now you are wary of strangers and have a complete right to be. I know that you are nervous because you hold around your neck so much power and you're uncertain what to do with it. Well, I can help you. As Nova already mentioned, those boys work for SHIELD, for me. I'm the leader. I train superhero's, make them into the next Avengers and I would be happy to take you on, if you want. You can say no if you want to, or you can say yes."

Ava paused, taking in his words. It sounded brilliant, and like it would help because she had to be honest, she knew about the powers of the amulet, but she'd never used it this much and she was frankly terrified of screwing up. However there was one thing…

"Could I go to school?"

Fury briefly wondered if he was dreaming. He had a lot of recruits asking if they could be taken OUT of school to train, but never until now had he had someone asking to be put IN it. "Why?"

"My dad always said knowledge was the greatest power to have. He was a very smart man and he always said that I had a brain, so I should use it." She blinked back a few tears before looking the director of SJIELD straight in the eye. "I want to honour his wish."

"…I think that can be arranged. So – you in?"

She nodded.

"Great. I'll get a female agent to show you were the showers are so you can clean up and I'll have a couple more agents get your room ready."

As Ava was led off, Fury watched her go, waited until she was complete out of sight and then punched the air and turned on his wrist-communicator. "Coulson?"

"Yes sir? Thanks, Nova, put it there, can I help?"

"Guess what? I just recruited White Tiger."

There was stunned silence then. "I'm sorry sir; I think I need to wash my ears. I thought you just said you recruited White Tiger…"

"That's cos I did. I can't believe it two months I spend chasing after her and then she turns up literally on the doorstep! Wonders will never cease…"

"I agree, what do the boys think of her? Have they met her?"

"Yes they've met. I think they'll gel nicely."

"You think so?"

"Yes, now, soon as you're done putting away the dynamite meet me in my office for a cup of celebratory coffee."

"I'll be there in 10, Director Fury."

Fury couldn't stop smiling as he hung up, for all his panicking earlier today hadn't been so bad after all.


	15. Ava's first training session

**Hey! I'm back! Okay, so this chapter focus on a bit of bonding. BTW If any of you can think of episodes that you feel might need a little 'tightening up'/expanding on please let me know. I do already have a couple in mind, but I'm open to suggestion.**

**Also I've started my very first crossover, which is called 'A journey through time'. It doesn't involve the Ultimate spider man crew though, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs crossed over with The 7D. **

**Anyway – let's crack on!**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

Fury sat behind his desk with two cups of coffee in front of him, patiently waiting. Soon enough he heard a knock at the door. "Come in, Phil."

"Thanks Fury. Oh, great, I need one of those." Coulson said, eagerly seeing the coffee. He then sat opposite Fury and took a sip.

"How are the boys?" Fury asked, taking a calm sip of his own drink.

"Good, good. They finished moving the dynamite, so I sent them for a shower and then told them to go to their rooms to wind down."

"Good, I'm hoping to properly introduce them to Ava during training, so they've got..." He checked his watch. "Half an hour."

"Still can't believe you got her to join. I thought she ran away from you every time you talked to her?"

"She did. That's why I talked to the boys first, so she could see I'm not a threat. Anyway she's staying so long as we provide her with schooling."

Coulson took another sip of his coffee, frowning slightly. "Schooling? Here on the tri-carrier?"

"No, a public school. Of course we'd need someone to play the part of the principle for cover when she goes for training and missions."

Coulson nodded, taking another sip. "Who're you thinking?"

Fury smirked a little. "You."

Coulson spat his drink everywhere. "Me!?" He spluttered. "Why me!?"

Fury gave a shrug. "You do have a teaching qualification, don't you? I know you wanted to be a teacher before joining SHIELD."

Coulson nodded for the third time. "But then I joined for a term as an intern and fell in love with the place."

"Yeah and your teaching dream was pushed aside. Which I appreciate, a lot of things on this ship couldn't have been done without you. So I'm giving you the opportunity to do what you always dreamed but on a bigger scale. You up for it?"

Coulson raised his cup. "You know it." He said, before draining the rest.

Meanwhile Sam was walking down the corridor to his room, when he did a double take. The room opposite his was now not bare but had a sign on it saying 'Ava' with a picture of a white tiger underneath it. He paused and studied it, okay he knew he wasn't the most observational person on the planet but that definitely wasn't there when he left.

"Something wrong with it?" Sam jumped as he heard Luke come up behind him.

"Don't do that! You're gonna give me a heart attack! No – I was just wondering…that door wasn't always there was it?"

Luke gave Sam a funny look. "Yeah it was. Just not decorated like that…"

"That's what I meant!" Sam practically screeched.

"What's the matter friends?" Danny asked coming out of his room.

Luke turned to him. "I thought you said you were gonna meditate a bit before training?"

"I did, turns out that you two talking outside is very distracting."

"What happened to your headphones?"

"Busted. I'm getting a new pair at the weekend…"

"Hello?" Sam interrupted. "Ladies if you would put aside the discussion on shopping we have a unidentified person here…agh!" He said 'agh' because he'd turned back to the door to see a girl leaning against it, looking thoroughly fed up.

"Alright what do you bozo's want? I'm actually trying to read in there." She said, nodding her head in the direction of her room.

Both Luke and Sam said nothing, Danny rolling his eyes just ever so slightly stepped forwards and extended a hand making sure to smile as he did so. "We just wanted to introduce ourselves. Are you a new member of the team?"

She nodded, shaking his hand.

"Cool. I'm Danny Rand, AKA Iron Fist."

"Luke Cage, AKA Power Man." Luke stepped forwards, also extending a hand.

"Power Man?" The girl snorted, while shaking Luke's hand. "Power Man? That's a lame name. What's your real one?"

"Luke Cage. I literally just said it. And it's not a 'lam name'. It's a cool one."

"Whatever. Who're you?" She said to Sam, who grinned widely.

"Sam Alexandra AKA the one, the only No-va!" He stuck a pose.

The girl was clearly un-impressed. "Okay."

"Who're you then?" Sam demanded, glaring hard at her.

"Ava Ayala AKA White Tiger."

"White Tiger!? You're the one who sliced that guys face open? Awesome! Anyway, so then Ay-va, what are your powers?" Sam said, in a tone that he meant to be superior but to everyone else came out sulky.

Ava didn't get a chance to explain as Coulson appeared behind Luke and Danny. "Ah Ava, I see you've met the boys."

"Yes."

"Great, well it's training now so outfits on and the boys will show you were the training room is. See you in five." Coulson walked off.

Five minutes later all four heroes were standing in the training area, Sam and Ava were deliberately not looking at each other, Luke was standing against the wall staring into space and Danny was standing next to him, doing a quick bit of meditating.

"Well I hope you all are going to look more alive in a minute." Fury's voice broke them out of their individual thought. "Training starts now; I want you all on top game. Ava, Luke and Danny will show you where the control room is, Coulson's already in there. Nova – you're on."

The boys rotated and Ava was admittedly impressed by their skills, Nova was brilliant and having a team-mate who can fly would be a definite help in battle. Luke was good as well; his brute strength was impressive in itself. Iron Fist was good, breaking though robots chests like they were nothing. And his story, plunging his fist into a dragons heart! Man – that took some guts.

Eventually it was her turn. "This'll be interesting." Nova said, leaning forward to get a better view. "Can girls fight?"

"Course they can." Coulson said sharply. "They can fight just as well as boys, some of them actually have more stamina."

"Sometimes the shortest candle can create the brightest flame." Iron Fist recited.

Nova started at him. "Dude how can you call her short? She's taller than me!"

"…Never mind."

"Sshh, she's starting." Luke hissed.

The three boys watched with wonder as White Tiger flew effortlessly through the air, twisting turning and destroying robots left right and centre, her long claws going through them like they were butter.

"…Wow." Nova said.

"She's good." Luke agreed. "I can see why Fury wanted her on the team."

"I agree. She'll make a most valuable ally." Danny said hands behind his head, feet on the controls, much to Coulson's displeasure.

After Ava had finished she went outside to be met by a "That was awesome!" By Nova.

"You're cool." Luke said, patting her on the back, causing her to nearly fall over.

"What are your powers?" Iron Fist asked.

Ava smiled as she lifting her amulet up so the boys could see it. "I have cat powers. They come from the amulet."

"Cool! Lemme see!" Nova reached forward and Ava lashed out, slapping his hand away while still holding tightly onto the amulet.

"Back of, bozo! It's mine!"

"Whoa! Okay, okay, I was only asking, sheesh." Sam whined as Ava stalked out the room.

"Nova, hate to break it to you, but yelling 'lemme see' isn't asking." Luke said, as patiently as he could.

"Yeah it is!"

"No it isn't."

"Yeah. It is."

"No. It isn't."

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No…"

Rolling his eyes Danny left leaving his two friends to bicker amongst themselves. He found Ava out in the corridor, looking at the amulet in her hands and muttering something gently to herself.

"Are you okay?" He checked.

Startled she turned around, only to relax when she saw who it was. "I'm fine."

"Who gave it to you?"

"What?"

"The amulet. Who gave it to you?"

"…My dad."

"Cool. Look, I'll leave you alone, but if you need to know anything about how the ship works, where stuff is, how to avoid Nova…" Ava let out a laugh at that, Danny smiled before continuing. "Then my room is the one with the dragon on it. Luke's is next to you and Sam is opposite you. I'm opposite Luke. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"See you later Ava."

"Bye Danny."

As he left Ava looked out across the city and admired the stars.


	16. Sam's the what?

**Hey! Roxy Goth here, with the first update of August. Sorry for the delay, but I was thinking about this chapter and the coming ones.**

**Originally this chapter was going to be Peter joining the team, however I re-watched the episode and became intrigued by a line from Ava to Sam, something along the lines of 'Look who thinks he's still leader.' My mind wondered why Sam would think that, apart from his over-inflated ego of course. So that's where these next chapters come from.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer and thank you to all those who have followed, favorited and reviewed!**

"I want Sam to be leader." Fury announced, standing in the middle of the chill-out room so all attention was on him.

Coulson was at the back, standing up straight against a wall doing his best to look professional. The look nearly crumbled when Fury announced that, but he managed not to yell out in surprise, keeping a straight face as all the others yelled their protests.

Fury held up a hand and spoke above the rest. "On a temporary basis only, for one day in fact. Starting tomorrow. He will be in charge of directing you in battle."

Coulson gave a quick glance at the other cadets. Ava looked furious, Luke looked worried, Danny was un-readable and Sam looked ecstatic. Coulson himself was wondering if his boss had finally gone mad.

"Why Sam!?" Ava demanded, unable to contain herself. "Why not me? I'd make a way better leader than him any day!"

"You're not suitable." Fury said, without thinking.

"Why? Because I'm a girl?"

Coulson could see the look of temporary panic in his boss's eyes. One of the last things they wanted the unit accused on was sexism "No, of course not. It's just that you've been a member of the team the least amount of time, we need someone with more experience."

Coulson almost face-palmed but managed to refrain. Just. He couldn't believe it, usually Fury was good at diffusing situation but he was doing a terrible job with this one. Fury himself had just realised where that sentence left him.

Surprisingly though it was Luke who picked up on it. "Why not me then? Or Danny? We've been here longer than Sam. And we make a great team."

"Why is everyone so opposed to me being leader?" Sam wondered out loud.

"Because you've got as much common sense as a tree. Wait that's an insult…to the tree." Ava muttered, earning a laugh from Danny and Luke and a glare from Sam.

"Exactly Luke, you said it." Fury said, getting everyone back on track. "You and Danny are a team. A good one at that, your dynamic could be ruined if one of you becomes a leader and the other doesn't. And Sam wouldn't necessary be a bad leader, after all he did help save the galaxy"

"Thanks Fury." Sam grinned.

"Empathis on help, not lead, and Danny's king of Kun Lun!" Ava protested.

"Two things, technically I'm not king yet, secondly sometimes the wildest fires can create the brightest flame." Danny said, with that same aura of calmness he used with everything.

Luke rolled his eyes. "Okay, what does that one mean?"

"Sam may be unpredictable, lack control and be extremely annoying…"

"Hey!"

"But he has some experience in leading if only by watching his mentor, if any of that experience has taken root in his brain we'll have to see. But everyone deserves a chance I suppose, so, whatever." Danny readjusted himself in his seat, smiling.

As Sam tried to figure out if he'd been praised or insulted Fury spoke. "Thank you Daniel…I think. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say, so go back to whatever you were doing. Coulson, with me."

As Fury and Coulson left Sam leapt up. "Yes! At last they see my awesomeness! I am leader!"

"Yeah for one day. Don't get too excited." Ava snapped, still wondering why on earth she hadn't been chosen. She would have been a much better choice; any idiot could see that surely!

"Being a leader is not as easy as you might think." Danny said seriously. "It requires patience, vigilance and common-sense, but with a sense of fun. It's a really hard job."

Sam waved aside the comment. "I'm sure I can handle it."

"Dude, did you hear what Danny just said? You have the sense of fun and your patience is improving but vigilance and common-sense? I think not." That was Luke.

"I do so have common-sense!"

"Dude last week you flew into a wall during training!"

Sam folded his arms. "I didn't mean to and that was only because you threw Danny at me!"

"I didn't throw him at you, I threw him NEAR you, there's a difference."

"Look." Danny interrupted before another argument could break out. "There's no point flapping about it now, we've got the rest of today to get through. And tomorrow we'll do exactly what Fury wants and follow you Sam, okay?"

"Are you mad…!" Ava began, until Danny silenced her with a glance.

"My point is, we're not going to know how good a leader Sam might or might not be unless we give him a chance." The blonde explained.

"Yeh exactly what Fist said. So let's stop talkin' about it and watch some football, yeh?" Luke changed the channel as Ava threw her arms in the air and stalked off.

"I would, Luke, but I've got to get ready. Being leader takes a lot of preparation you know." Sam said before shooting of.

Danny watched him go and then leaned forward in his seat, and Luke expected him to leave as well until his friend got himself in a more-comfortable spot, which apparently involved stretching out along the sofa and resting his legs on top of Luke's. "So? Which team are we supporting then?"

Meanwhile in Fury's office him and Coulson had got themselves some coffee and were now sitting at his desk having a conversation.

"Fury, I know this might be out of place for me to say, but, why the HELL did you decide to put SAM in charge!? I know you have a reason for everything and normally I'm pretty good at figuring out where you're coming from but in this case you've completely lost me. Danny – yes, Ava – yes, even Luke would be a yes, but why Sam?"

"I have my reasons."

"Well, we've established that, care to explain them?"

Fury sighed and took a long sip of coffee. He needed it. Then he spoke. "Ava, as well as not being here that long, would take the responsibilities of being leader TO seriously. I can see what would happen now, she'd crack down on the boys, they'd follow her instructions for a couple of days, but then they'd get fed up, or bored. They'd talk amongst themselves for something fun to do, Sam being Sam would probably suggest pulling a prank on Ava, he'd convince Luke who in turn would convince Danny. The joke would be played and Ava would go up in flames. No, Ava needs to learn to let go, have fun. She can do that better as a follower than a leader."

Coulson nodded. "Makes sense. What about Luke? I thought he'd be one of your first choices, being the Cages son?"

"Y'see that's one of my problems. I've got to be careful with Luke; I can't be seen to be playing favourites."

"But on the other hand if Luke really is right for the role you can't ignore him because he's your friend's son."

"That may be the case, Coulson, but irrelevant because Luke is NOT right for the role and I'll tell you why. Luke's attitude to things is to go head-first into them; he has an 'act first ask questions later' kind of approach. It's why he works so well with Daniel who has a 'think and access' kind of mind-set. A leader can't act rashly, he needs to be able to step back and access the situation. Also he wouldn't know what to do, he'd want to be able to win the fight without anyone getting hurt, and his instinct is to protect people. But a leader has to make those tough choices sometimes, he might have to send someone in to possibly die, he might have to sacrifice someone or himself. A leader makes tough choices, Luke just doesn't, at this minute anyway, have that ability. He's a protector who wants everybody on his team to be safe, very quality in a teammate, not in a leader." Fury took another sip.

"Alright, fair enough. But Daniel can do that, access a situation I mean; he can look at things from a different angle, not to mention everyone on the team likes him."

"Popularity does not automatically equal leadership, Coulson, you should know that. As a matter of fact some of the best leaders are the ones despised by their team. Although you are right, Daniel would make a great leader."

"Well then what's stopping you assigning him?"

"Because he' already king of Kun Lun and CEO of Rand industries. The kids got too much responsibility, I don't want to throw leader at him as well. Plus I wasn't lying, him and Luke do really make a good team and if I assign one of them to be the leader and not the other it's going to ruin that dynamic."

"I get your point. But he technically isn't king of Kun Lun yet, and he can't officially be CEO until he's 21." Coulson reminded his boss, taking a sip of his own coffee.

"True, but the monks Danny was brought up with said when I talked to them that it's all but official that Danny will end up being king. And they're gonna try him in six months."

"Six!? You means he's been here six already? God, that's gone quickly."

"I know. Another reason Ava isn't going to be in charge you don't give someone who's been here a month the job of leader. So anyway, in order to prepare him for the responsibility the monks advised me to let him experience the place of a follower, so he'll be able to see things from his people's perspective easier."

"That makes sense. So, Sam's your choice?"

Fury finished the coffee. "Yeh, he's been here two months now, gets on quite well with Danny and Luke. Even Ava's sort of warming up to him. Plus of course I'm hoping it might teach him a bit of responsibility. Also what I'm really hoping will happen is this, Sam gets the responsibility and can't handle it, he then has a realisation and works to improve his own behaviour while respecting who ever DOES become leader, who will probably be an outside source as the four of them are to used to acting as a team. You follow?"

Coulson nodded. "Perfectly. You're doing a little bit of reverse-psychology on Sam, giving him what he wants in order to make him realise he doesn't want it." Coulson finished his coffee. "Well, one things for sure, Fury. You've made tomorrow an interesting day already."


	17. How not to lead your team

**Hey! I'm back! Three things, first of all I've changed the characters on here to include Fury and Coulson alongside Luke and Danny as I realised they'd featured to predominantly to not be included in the list.**

**Secondly I have just started a community for Luke fans called 'Luke's Community'. I know original right? But I couldn't think of anything else, anyway it's in desperate need of both stories and staff. If you want to check it out, it basically says if you're interested in submitting a story/becoming staff just PM me. **

**Thirdly, this ended up being split into two parts as it was getting ridiculously long. **

**Okay, so let's carry on, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Sam." Fury sat in his office, looking across his desk at the boy who was currently beaming. "Tell me; how do you think today went?"

"Yeah, it went great." Sam said confidently. "It went awesome!"

Fury nodded. "Okay, you know, that's interesting because I don't think it went 'awesome'. As a matter of fact I think you have a lot of work to do."

"What work?"

"Well, let's start with this morning, shall we?" Fury turned around and played the surveillance footage.

At half past 7 Sam left his room, smiling and whistling a cheery tune. He then paused, examined the three doors of his team-mates before knocking on Ava's and opening it.

Fury switched the footage to inside Ava's room at the same time. The girl was lying on her bed, dressed in her civilian clothes reading a book. The minute she heard the knock she frowned and pushed herself into a more comfortable position. "Who is it?"

"Your wonderful leader, Nova. C'mon, up and at em!" Sam said, standing in the doorway.

"What…ugh! Go away, Sam! It isn't even quarter to yet! Fury doesn't come till 8!"

"Yes, but I want to prove what a great leader I am by having you all up and ready for him before he comes, now c'mon up and at 'em!"

Ava growled before remembering what Danny said and stalking out into the corridor.

Next up was Luke. Sam knocked and got no reply, so knocked again. Switching the footage over Fury and Sam could see Luke was still in bed.

"Go way, Danny." He muttered. "Too early for fortune-cookie stuff."

At which point Sam opened the door. "Rise and shine, Luke! C'mon up and at em! Luke? Luke!" He yelled standing over Luke's bed.

Luke groaned and pulled the covers tighter over his head. Sam sighed and pulled at them. "Get up." He whined. "C'mon! Fury will be here in 25 minutes and I want you all up and ready! Ava's already up; do you really want to be beaten by a girl?"

As Ava yelled her protest Luke's fist flew out from under the covers to punch Sam in the stomach.

"Eh? Sam? Oh, sorry." Luke said groggily, for a couple of minutes there he'd forgotten where he was.

"S'all right. Just go out into the corridor, when you're ready, I mean." Sam squeaked from the floor as Luke casually stepped over him, still in his pyjamas.

"Well, I've…I've erm…gotta get dressed first, so if you'd be so kind as to get your ass out of here, that's be much appreciated."

"You got it." Sam gasped standing up, wincing and running into the corridor where Ava was smirking.

"You so asked for that." She said.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You'll see when Fury comes here, he's gonna be so impressed! Just lemme get my breath back…" A couple of minutes later and Sam was his usual bouncy self. "Right, Danny next." He said opening the blonde's door.

Inside Danny's room the boy in question was doing his usual meditation session.

"Hey Danny." Sam said, making sure to keep his voice bright.

Danny jumped, somehow managing to jerk himself backwards and basically topple over.

"Oh, sorry, dude, you alright?" Sam asked, helping him up.

"I will live. What do you want?"

"Twenty minutes till Fury arrives, I want you all up and in the corridor now."

"Yes okay…wait, now? But…I'm meditating."

"Yeah, so?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

"I always meditate in the morning from half 7 to 8."

"Well, add it on to the time you mediate in the evening."

"But…that'll interfere with other things I'm doing."

"Like what?" Sam said, without thinking.

Danny bristled. "Myself and Luke were going to watch a movie actually. He's horrified I haven't watched 'The lord of the rings'."

"Well can't you do your meditating beforehand?"

Danny opened his mouth to tell Sam that because of the length of the film and the fact that Luke wanted him to watch all of them; it was basically going to be a movie night. Plus he'd already had to adjust his evening meditating anyway so he wasn't particularly happy about adjusting his morning session as well when he caught the look on Sam's face. Pure determination. This was happening, no doubt about it. Danny sighed when he remembered his own words from yesterday and realising how it would look if he of all of them went back on his word, he gave in and left the room, where Luke had got dressed and was waiting outside in the corridor.

They proceeded to wait for 15 minutes with Danny getting more and more worked up, Luke banging his head against the wall in a slow methodical rhythm and Ava looking like she was about to claw Sam's eyes out. Then Fury arrived.

"Oh, you're all early..." He remarked.

Sam saluted. "Al ready and reporting for duty, sir!"

"Good one, Sam."

Fury paused the footage as Sam immediately said. "See? You complimented me!"

"Yes, because at the time I didn't realise how you got the others up. What do I do when I want you all to report for duty, Sam?"

"You knock on the door?"

"Right, do I go into your rooms?"

"No…"

"Exactly because that would be a violation of your privacy. You shouldn't have gone into any of their room to wake them up. Teammates can usually do that without issue, but leaders have to be more careful. You usually knock, wait for someone to say 'Come in', and then do so. Also by not doing that you annoyed Ava, got punched by Luke and caused Danny to shorten his meditation time. Bet you didn't know he already had to shorten his afternoon meditation time as well, did you?" Fury questioned, fixing Sam with a gaze that could freeze the Sahara.

"He never told me."

"Why would he? Also, this is without mentioning that the reason I go down at 8 is precisely to get you all up and ready, so there was no need for you to do it so now you've not only irritated them but irritated them for absolutely no reason what so ever. Now – training…" Fury skipped a large chunk of the footage until they got to four o clock.

Fury was there, looking over his line of recruits. "Right team, normal practice today, robots. You will be listening to Sam, got it?" Cue general murmurs of agreement. "Good now let's begin."

"You actually did alright on this, Sam, but there is one specific moment I would lie to draw attention to." Fury commented, forwarding the footage a bit more.

On the screen Sam was in the middle of the room.

"Ava, slash! Great! Whoa!" He dodged a robot. "Okay, so now, Luke…what are you doing?"

Luke who had been in the process of throwing Danny got confused and accidently threw Danny into a wall. "Fast Ball special?" He offered as Danny groaned.

"You can't always use that move! Robot behind you, now!"

"That's enough." Coulson's voice floated through the speakers. "I'm shutting them down. Daniel are you alright?"

Sam immediately turned to Danny who was standing shakily. Luke went over and helped him up.

"Steady on, bro. You alright?"

"Yeah, fine. Just might need to do a bit of meditating after this…" Danny said, clutching Luke's shoulder.

"Nuh-uh! We're going to do team building!" Sam said hyperactivity.

"No you are not." Fury said, firmly cutting in. "Ava, Luke and Daniel you are going to go and relax. Sam, you are going to come with me. Now." And with that he turned and left, Nova trailing behind.

Back in the office Fury paused the footage and turned to Sam. "And that's how we ended up here. What was wrong with that?"

"Easy. Luke through Danny into a wall." Sam scoffed.

Fury fixed him with a glare. "He did not 'throw him into a wall', well not deliberately anyway. If you'll observe…" He got the footage back and watched it in slow motion. "Luke aimed Daniel at that robot, but when YOU yelled at him, you confused him and he ended up throwing him into a wall."

Sam shrank in his seat a bit. "I just wanted them to use a different move, they always use that one!"

"Ever heard the expression 'don't fix it if it ain't broke?' they use that move because it works. Because of what you did, you not Luke, Daniel could have been seriously injured. He wasn't, thank the lord, but it was a near miss. I do understand you know." Fury said, softening his voice when he saw how guilty Sam was looking. "You had one crack at being leader and you wanted to impress me, let me know you could do it, so you went overboard and tried to cram everything in. But when you do that you make mistakes. You can't afford to make mistakes in this job; a mistake could cost someone there life. Do you understand?"

Sam nodded.

"Good, so with that in mind I'll make you leader until we find someone else. I take it you're alright with that? Good, now scram." As he watched Sam leave he smiled and pressed the intercom.

"Coulson? Come in here please."

A couple of minutes his second-in-command entered. "You wanted to see me, Director Fury?"

"Yes, take a seat. First things, I've decided to let Sam remain leader. I didn't think it was fair to just let him have one day to prove himself, so I've given him a bit extra."

"Okay, erm, how much extra?" Coulson asked, nervously.

"Until we find someone else, and before you ask, Phil, I do have someone in mind. You ever heard of Spider Man?"

"AKA Peter Parker? Of course. He's the kid who was bitten by a radioactive spider."

"I'm thinking him."

"Why?"

"There's something about him, however he'll need watching for a bit, hark why I'm leaving Sam in charge for now."

"Okay, so, am I dismissed?"

"Yes."

Meanwhile in the chill-out room Luke and Danny were getting stuff ready for their movie marathon.

"You sure you alright, Danny?" Luke asked, dumping a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

"Yes, Luke, I'm fine."

"You sure? You seem a little on edge."

"I've just not had time to do that much meditating today. Sam dragged me out in the morning and I've already had to cut some of my usual time out today to make room for this."

Luke nodded. "Well, how bout you do some now? I can handle this, it's just snacks right? You try and catch up on your meditating powers or whatever…"

"I'm not sure…"

"Dude, I know one thing for sure I am not sitting next to you for god-knows how many hours if you're going to be this on edge and generally grumpy. Grumpy people are no fun to be around; it's why no one apart from Coulson hangs out with Fury."

Danny laughed. "Okay, then, my friend. I will."

As Danny settled himself on top of a cushion Luke continued finding food for them to snack on.


	18. Movie night

**Hey! I'm back, please don't shoot me, I know I haven't updated for ages, but I've been busy. Again.**

**Anyway, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer and let's crack on with the story!**

Danny felt at peace for the first time that day. He took a deep breath in and then breathed out. Ah, relaxation, he could feel the stress melting away from his muscles.

"Danny?"

The blonde frowned slightly, trying to focus.

"Danny!"

To no avail. Irritated he opened his eyes. "What is it, Luke?" His friend was stood in front of him looking large and imposing.

"Snacks are ready. You watching this with me or not, man?"

Danny sighed. "Yes of course I am. What is it again?"

"Lord of the rings."

"Right." Danny nodded; bringing the cushion he'd been sitting on forward and placing it in front of the sofa Luke was lounging on. Luke looked down in confusion at the blonde.

"Danny, dude, you know you can sit up here right?"

"I feel more comfortable here, but thanks for the offer."

Luke looked at Danny on his little perch and shook his head fondly. "You really are weird, you know that right?"

"As someone who has bullet-proof skin and regularly smashes through walls…"

"I do not smash through walls, Danny…"

"You are hardly in a positon to talk." Danny talked over Luke as if he hadn't spoken.

Luke finally got the DVD to the main menu and continued the snark war. "This coming from a guy whose fists glow?"

Danny paused and considered. "Point taken. Okay how about we say we're both weird and leave it at that?"

"Deal, how did we even start this conversation anyway?"

"I have no idea. C'mon, press play."

"Yes, your majesty."

"Shut up."

Luke barked out a laugh and finally started the DVD.

About half an hour later Sam poked his head round the door. "Hey, guess what?"

"No idea." Luke replied instantly staring at the screen. "Now go away, we're busy."

"Ooh, Having a movie night are we? I thought that was something girls did…"

"Sam, do I even have to tell you how close you are to dying now?" Luke growled.

"In order to like new things, one must first open there minds to the possibilities." Danny recited.

Sam stared blankly at the back of the blonde's head. "And that means…"

"He's watching Lord of the rings, or trying to at least, because he's never seen it before and doesn't want to be disturbed, so go away." Luke said.

"I will, just as soon as I tell you this, I am now leader!"

"What!?" Luke grabbed the remote and paused the TV, casing Danny to groan. "Why!?"

"Obviously I'm just that awesome…"

"Sam go away, I am not in the mood okay?"

"Alright, alright I'm going, sheesh. Oh and also I told Ava. She was thrilled."

"I wondered what that shriek of horror was about earlier." Danny snarked, still staring at the screen. "Sam, go away. You've annoyed us enough today."

"I didn't mean to." For once Sam sounded genuinely hurt. "I was just trying to show Fury I was the best…"

"Yeah, well next time can you try and come up with a way to do so that doesn't involve dragging us out of bed at 7 30 AM?" Danny said. He sounded calm and patient but both Sam and Luke could detect the anger under his voice.

Sam could take a hint if it was drilled through hard enough. He left.

Luke and Danny watched the film in silence for another 45 minutes until Ava appeared in the doorway.

"Hey guys, Sam told me you were up. I'm bored, can I watch with you?"

"Sure grab a seat." Luke told her, starting to swing his legs of the sofa.

As Danny ducked Ava said quickly. "I'll be alright on the floor." She grabbed another cushion and sat next to Danny.

"What have you been doing since training?" He asked her.

"Reading."

"Reading what?"

"Oh, just some romance novels, eh, I don't think you'd like them…"

"Probably not…"

"Guys can you shush, please? Kinda trying to watch a movie here." Luke interrupted. The rest of the night passed in silence.


	19. You're doing it, no arguments

**Hey! I'm back, sorry for not updating for the past two weeks but I've been having problems with my stats – they haven't been showing up. Never mind, fixed now. So this chapter takes place six month after the last during the second episode. It takes place after the scene where Peter was going 'I need some me time' right before it showed the team joining school.**

**Danny's proverb is by Sarah Silverman**

**Anyway, my rambling aside, here's the next chapter! See chapter 1 for the disclaimer. **

"Coulson I have a question for you." Fury announced walking into Coulson's office and sitting in the chair opposite him.

Coulson stopped going through the paper work, which was going to make Spider-Man an official member of the team once he'd signed it, and gave his boss his full attention. "Fire away, sir."

"Would you have any objections to Luke, Danny and Sam joining Midtown High on Monday?"

Coulson considered. "None that I can immediately think of, but we'd have to take certain things into account…why?"

"Come on Coulson, take a guess."

"You want them to join?"

"Got it in one. But what do you mean 'things to take into account?'" Fury asked leaning back in his chair.

"Well, it's fine with Peter and Ava, Peter's there anyway and Ava despite not actually going to school for the time her dad was ill and then after he died still studied at the library therefore keeping her intellect up, so she'll be fine with adapting to the school work and probably the people as well. But Sam hasn't gone to a normal school before and although he'll be fine with the social side, he may need some extra support with the actual work."

"We can arrange that." Fury said, immediately. "We're going to have to put in special measures for them anyway."

"True, but Luke hasn't been to school in five years and Danny not been since he was 9. I mean he's still very smart and should have no problem with the school work side of things, but I have concerns about the social side. Luke…I'm not sure. No idea about the social side could go either way, the school work…he's good at science but not brilliant but he struggles in other subjects."

Fury gave a shrug. "There's only one thing that's good at everything and that's a machine. Of course they're going to have some issues. We can work around that, we'll HAVE to work around that. My point is do you think it's a good idea or not?"

Coulson considered and then nodded. "Yes. I can certainly see the advantage, all of them in one building…"

"Good that's settled then…"

"Whoa, hold on a minute." Coulson said, stopping Fury from getting up. "When did all this come about? Last time we talked the thought of them all attending the school together hadn't even crossed your mind, what changed it? Something to do with Peter Parker?"

Fury looked at him incredulously. "You know, Phil, sometimes I think you should have had a job as a psychic."

"Not that difficult to figure out. So what's your thinking?"

Fury sighed. "Parker was going on about 'me time', time away from SHIELD. At first I dismissed it as Parker being Parker, and then I actually thought about it. They're fundamentally teenagers. All of them are 17, this hero stuff is probably having an effect on their minds anyway, and being isolated with no one to talk to but each other could easily lead to over-reliance on each other. I mean, they're a close-knit team already and it's only been a year! Luke and Danny seem to have practically adopted each other as siblings, I suppose I don't want them turning out like another Deadpool."

"Deadpool was a completely different kettle of fish, Nick. They aren't going to be like that." Coulson assured, putting the coffee he'd made during Fury's lamenting in front of him. "Trust me."

"I do, but I can't slash don't want to risk it. If there's no fundamental reason why they can't all attend the same school together then they will. How soon can you update the school's register?"

Coulson smirked. "Soon as I want to. I'm the principle."

"Well do it now, they can start on Monday."

"Right away, Director Fury." Coulson said, switching his computer on. "Er…by the way…do they know about this yet?"

Fury paused in the doorway, grinning slyly at his second-in-command. "What do you think? I'm just about to go and tell them. I'm sure they'll be delighted." He left.

Coulson grinned and took a sip of his own coffee. "I'm not." He muttered.

Meanwhile in the chill out room the four team-mates were scattered around various areas of the room, Sam was on the coach playing his video games, Luke was on the floor watching football, Danny was in a corner of the room meditating and Ava was scrunched up in another corner of the room reading a book. They'd not spoken to each other since their team fight.

Until Luke decided to change that during a commercial. "So what do you guys think of Spidey?" He asked, stretching out.

"Annoying jerk who clearly thinks he knows everything." Ava replied, without even looking up.

"Irritating idiot whose powers a clearly non-superior to mine yet still had the guts to come in and take over?" Sam said, killing a few zombies with more force than needed.

Luke rolled his eyes. Well he had asked. "You guys clearly aren't fans then."

"I should be leader!" Sam whined, prompting three eye-rolls from around the room. They'd heard this 10 times a day ever since Fury had announced it last week. "I've managed for six months!"

Luke tuned him out and concentrated on his football which had just back on until suddenly the TV turned off. "Hey! What the big…oh. Hey Fury…"

Fury was standing behind him, TV remote in hand [He'd picked it up from the arm of the chair] not looking pleased. "The next time I say 'attention, please', I expect attention, got it?"

Luke nodded.

Fury took a deep breath and looked around the rooms, now everybody was looking at him, including Danny. "What I was going to say is that I've made a decision. You're all going to attend Midtown High, with Ava and Peter starting Monday."

As he expected there were shouts of protest at that mainly from Ava, Sam and Luke. "NO ARGUMENTS." He said firmly. "Coulson is going to give you your books Sunday night. I trust you can all find pencils."

"But Fury, WHY? I was looking forward to having time away from SHIELD." Ava said, with a look of barley-concealed rage.

Fury smiled. "You took the words right out of my mouth. You all need time away from SHIELD, to mix with other people, other non-super-hero people. To experience normal life."

Sam looked excited at that, while Luke frowned. "Normal life? Fury, I lived on the streets since I was 11 and before that my parents were agents of SHIELD. I don't know 'normal'."

""Nothing seems crazy when you're used to it." Danny recited softly.

"It is non-negotiable." Fury said, retaining control. "You start at Midtown High on Monday. You're to report to Coulson in the morning, so I know you're actually there, and then find Peter Parker and explain the situation to him. You shouldn't have to do that much actual explaining, he's a bright kid, I'm sure he'll figure it out."

"When we met him he was riding an out-of-control motorcycle through the town." Ava deadpanned.

Fury shrugged. "Appearances can be deceiving. Anyway it's happening, no arguments, goodbye." And with that he was gone.

Ava threw herself back into her corner. "Great, that's school ruined…" She muttered.

"I am so going to be the most popular person there, I wonder which party I'll get invited to first?" Sam rambled.

Luke walked over to Danny and nudged him. "What you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I have not been to a normal school since I was 9."

"Ku Lun not have schools?"

"Yes, of course they did, but myself and Scorpion were educated separately. Perk of being royalty. What about you?"

Luke breathed out. "I'm feeling positive actually, I mean, I haven't been to school since I was 11, but from what I remember it was cool. It'll be an adventure."

Danny rolled his eyes and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes before Luke spoke, grinning. "One thing I know for sure is that you're going to have to bring an iron rod to school with you."

Danny looked at him in confusion. "Why?..."

"Because when the girls there hear THE Danny Rand is at THEIR school, you are going to be swamped in hugs and kisses and jealous boyfriends…" Danny started hitting him. Ignoring the blows, Luke carried on. "Secret admirer notes in your locker, people wanting snippets of your hair to sell on EBay…" He got up as Danny was causing his arm to go numb. Danny followed. "Hey on the bright side you'll have no problem getting a date for prom!" Luke yelled over his shoulder as Danny chased him down the tri-carrier corridor.


	20. The problem with being Danny Rand

**Hey! I'm back! Okay, couple of things first of all thank you to Immortal Weapon for explaining American schooling to me, it's certainly seems quite complicated. For that reason I won't be going too much into what classes Danny, Luke and co are taking, that can be up to yourselves, though I will specify which year they're in. **

**Also Nyan Wolf I loved your suggestion and am going to use it, thank you. Also thank you to my three gest reviewers, Lol, glad you're liking it. Guest 1, I'm glad you 'love this story' here's the 'more' you desire. Guest 2, I also loved your suggestion and am going to use it in the next chapter, thank you.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer and let's crack on.**

"First day of scho-ool! Yeah! I can't wait!" Sam exclaimed walking down the street, bag slung over one shoulder. Fury had kicked the of the tri-carrier about 10 minutes before hand and they'd walked down the stairs from the top of a skyscraper in order to actually walk to school.

Just behind him Ava raised an eyebrow. "You? Looking forward to school? Did you bang your head or something, Sam?"

"Are you kidding? I can't wait to meet everyone! I'm sure I'll be king of the school by lunchtime…"

"I seriously doubt that…" As those two started bickering Luke rolled his eyes. He was just behind Ava, walking next to Danny who looked lost in thought. He grinned and nudged him.

"You alright, Rand?"

"Fine, just nervous. Its fine, I'll be fine." Danny mumbled, looking uncertain.

Luke looked at him concerned and said. "You do realise I was joking yesterday, right? No one will be trying to get snippets of your hair. You'll be fine."

When they finally made it to school they were side-tracked by Coulson pretty much immediately. "Ah, my new pupils, this way…" He said, ushering them from the hallway to his office.

"Liking the suit, Coulson." Sam said, once the door had been shut. "Very men in black."

"It's a disguise. If I'm going to be a principle I have to look the part. Anyway, trust you made it here without any issues?"

"It was fine." Ava assured him. "No problems what so ever."

"Great, message from Fury." Coulson said, spinning his computer around so they could see Nick Fury on it.

"Good job getting here recruits, I did wonder if you'd get lost. Now, rules, first of all, no one can know about your identities, got it?"

They all nodded. "Second, detention. Now seeing as Coulson can't exactly drag you in here every time there's a SHIELD emergency he'll instead send you to detention…don't worry Ava, it's just cover, it won't go on your permanent record." Fury added seeing her face. "Those are the main two rules, so keep your heads down and don't draw attention to yourself."

Luke started laughing at that and Fury shot daggers at him. "Something amusing you, Cage?"

"Sorry, I-it's just…we've got Danny Rad with us…and you don't want us to draw attention to ourselves!? With all due respect, sir, that's simply not going to happen." Luke explained.

"Don't be silly, Luke. Daniel went missing over 10 years ago, I'm sure no one remembers him." Coulson said.

"I did." Luke pointed out. "It took me a while, but when he introduced himself it clicked. And we're in school so everyone's going to know his name."

"I am standing next to you, you know." Danny said, with just a hint of frustration in his voice.

"I'm not worried, Harry Osbourne is here as well, and if the kids in this school can adjust to him, I'm sure they can adjust to Danny. Also, in regards to Mr Rand, you will be a sophomore, okay?"

Danny nodded as Sam frowned. "I thought he would be a sophomore anyway? He's 16 isn't he? Like all of us?"

"Actually I'm 17. My birthday was in May remember?" Danny said.

Sam looked confuse as Ava smacked her hand to her face. "We had that party for him?" She growled. "He had chocolate cake? You tried to blow up balloons and failed? Luke attempted to be a DJ and mixed up the music…"

"You tried to dance ad fell over on your arse." Luke muttered in response for the DJ jab.

Ava shot him a look, but before an argument could break out Fury interrupted. "Doesn't matter, the point is I've pulled a few strings and he'll be a sophomore with the rest of you, got it? Now scram and find Parker, school starts in 10 and I want him de-briefed before that, tell him training starts on Wednesday."

"Wednesday? Yes! No training, uh-huh!" Sam did a sort of little dance.

"For Parker only." Coulson said sternly. "We're giving him time to adjust, you lot however still have training starting tonight, now scram!"

After searching for five seconds they found him by the lockers about to get his face punched in by the obvious resident bully. Luke, still having that hating-bullies attitude grabbed Parker and pulled him out the way, feeling pleasure in watching the bully fly into the locker himself.

To say Peter wasn't happy when he put two and two together would be an under-statement as a matter of fact they heard he'd later gone storming to Coulson's office demanding a transfer.

The four of them had two very different experiences for the first day, Sam spent it meeting everyone in school and introducing himself and only taking the minimal interest in lessons. Ava spent it signing up for every extra club imagined including Chess Club, Book Club and Karate Club. Luke spent it soaking everything in and doing his best to understand what the heck the teachers were on about while also introducing himself to a few people, including a cool girl called MJ. It wasn't that he was a teacher's pet, he just didn't like being that person who held the class up, the class clown. It was clear that was going to be Sam's department. Danny spent it navigating the building and wondering why so many girls were staring at him. On the bright side he understood the work and had introduced himself to MJ as well. [She'd actually come to all of them at various different points of the day to introduce herself. It was only at lunchtime they'd discovered she was one of parker's friends when they saw her eating with him, they'd also noticed Harry Osbourne there. They sat at a different table]

It was on the second day that things really kicked off. The morning went alright, they got though that with no problems it was lunch time that things went to hell.

Danny was coming out of his class when suddenly he heard a female yell. "Oh my god! Danny Rand!"

He turned to see about five girls running at him, instinct kicking in he ran as fast as he could through the corridors until he saw Luke who had up until then been chilling at his locker waiting for Danny to arrive.

"LUKE, HELP ME!" Danny pretty much screamed. Looking up from his phone in surprise Luke saw Danny running towards him with about 20 girls on his trail, next thing he knew Danny had pushed him away from the locked and was hiding behind him clearly using Luke as some sort of human shield. The 20 girls made a semi-circle around the lockers.

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! What the hell is wrong with you all?" Luke yelled, putting his arms out a bit so no one could get at Danny from the side.

"IT'S DANNY RAND!" A girl screamed, fanning herself with her hand.

Luke looked at her as if she'd grown two heads. "Yeah, I know so?"

"So? So! He's the son of a billionaire!"

Behind Luke Danny grimaced. There it was again, why couldn't it ever be, oh look it's Danny Rand, he's the really nice guy, who's kind and intelligent and wise, who was it always, 'oh look, it's Danny Rand' he's so cute!'.

"Yeah, he also happenes to be my best mate, so back off!" Luke snapped, hands now touching the lockers behind him so he was effectively caging Danny in.

"What ON EARTH is going on here?" Coulson's voice had never sounded so sweet, Luke though sighing in relief as the girls turned to their new principle who had a face like thunder.

"It's Danny Rand, sir." She mumbled, though she didn't sound so confident now.

The look Coulson sent her didn't help. "I know that, now, Mr Rand is here, like you all are to get an education. He is not here to be drooled over alright, just treat him like you do Harry Osbourne. Got it? Noe scram. NOW." He said sternly when his orders didn't seem to be carried out.

"You two get some lunch." He said, to Luke ad Danny who both nodded.

"Luke, my friend, you can let me out now." Danny mumbled seeing Luke hadn't dropped his stance.

"Sorry, you alright?" Luke asked, fishing his lunch money out from behind Danny's head.

"I'm fine, I'm used to it. You should have seen it when I first returned, it was crazy." Danny said as they walked down the corridor.

"You got lunch money?"

"Pocket."

"Good."

When they'd got lunch and sat at their table Sam and Ava looked at them, Sam smugly and Ava concernedly.

"Hear you got mobbed by girls, Danny." Sam smiled. "Nice one, dude!" He said holding out his hand for a high-five. Danny sighed and returned it, rolling his eyes a bit.

"Are you alright, Danny?" Ava asked.

"Fine."

"Hey, I wonder if that treatment applied to me, you know, as your mate…" Sam said, a dreamy; look creeping over his face.

Danny and Luke looked at each other and shuddered. "Believe me friend, you do not want that kind of treatment." Danny assured him, seriously.

"What? Are you serious? What straight guy wouldn't like being mobbed by girls? Hold it…are you straight?" Sam asked, seemingly genially interested.

"Sam…" Ava sighed, rolling his eyes.

Danny looked confused and looked over at Luke who sighed. "Are you straight means do you like girls. Yo know, as opposed to guys. Not that it bothers me, I don't care which way you swing…" Luke said awquadly.

Danny went beetroot. "N-no, I-I think I'm straight, thanks…"

"Shall we talk about lessons?" Ava said, sensing the awquadness. It was the first time she ever received a yes.


	21. Misunderstanding

**Hey, Roxy Goth here! Sorry for the delay, was coming up with this next chapter. Thank you to all my guest reviewers, your comments mean a lot to me.**

**Actually the idea for this chapter came from one for the guest; I won't ruin it for you by telling you what they said. But Guest, thanks for the suggestion. **

**There is a OC in this chapter, Wilbur, I've made him up and don't worry, he's just here for this chapter only. He's also gay, if you don't like don't read. **

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

Wednesday passed without any issue and so did Thursday although it was clear to all of them that Parker was going out of his way to avoid them. Just little hints like him walking away from them, distracting MJ when she talked to them and generally ignoring them.

Friday though was interesting. Danny had quite enjoyed the morning, his lesson went well and he was just at peace with the world.

Luke's morning had gone horrible, he'd had a lesson that he hated been told that there were to many people on the basketball team and he'd have to try again next semester and to top it off he'd forgotten his lunch money. Yep, life was great.

"Hey Danny." He said, catching up to the blonde during break. "I've forgotten my lunch money. I know lunch is a while of yet, but can I…"

"Yes, you can share my lunch." Danny said easily, stopping at his locker to put his books away.

"Really? Cool."

"Just remember it next time."

"Will do, bro."

"Excuse me?" The boys turned to see one of the sophomores standing next to them smiling. He had brown hair, glasses and a multi-couler jumper with a black jacket and blue jeans.

"Yeah?" Luke asked.

"Are you Danny Rand and Luke Cage?"

Luke and Danny looked at each other and then back at the guy. "Yep."

"I'm Wilbur Jenkins, head of yearbook. Can I talk to you two?"

"Sure thing friend, go ahead." Danny said, before Luke had the chance to tell Wilber to go away.

"Not here. You're new aren't you? Do you know where the yearbook room is?"

"Yes."

"No." Luke and Danny spoke at the same time. Danny sighed.

"I do."

"Have you just memorised this whole building?" Luke asked, in astonishment.

Danny shrugged in reply as Wilbur tried to get their attention. "Well, I'll meet you there at lunch then. 1 o clock? Bye!" He left.

Luke looked at Danny. "Do you actually know where the room is?"

"Down the hall and to the right. Opposite English."

Luke frowned. "That's a closet isn't it?"

"A closet with the words 'yearbook room on it, yes." Danny said, patiently.

Luke folded his arms. "I don't know about this, I've got alarm bells ringing."

"You never make friends without talking to people." Danny reminded him.

Luke waved a hand in dismissal. "Yeah, alright fortune cookie. I still think we should get Ava and Sam in on the loop about this."

At lunch the two boys did exactly that. "Well that's weird." Ava deadpanned.

Sam was more excited. "Cool! He could be like, a spy! Put into the school to give information bout a super-hero case that only you two can solve!"

"Shut up." Ava hissed, digging him in the ribs. "God foghorn, someone might hear you!"

"Dude, chill. They'll think I'm talking about a movie. Anyway, shall we go?" Sam took off down the corridor before the words were fully out his mouth.

Luke pushed the door of the yearbook 'office' open. "Hello?"

"Luke! Danny! Come in." Wilbur beckoned. "I want to talk to you about a club, shut the door."

"No way." Luke said as Danny did so. "Danny? Dude c'mon!" he hissed in his friends ear. "We don't know the guy!"

"I'm getting a positive vibe."

"I'm not."

Danny sighed. "Do you trust me?"

Luke sighed.

"Do you trust me?" Danny pressed.

"Yes of curse I do."

"Then trust me on this, anything goes wrong blame it on me."

"Oh don't worry, I will."

Danny rolled his eyes before turning to face Wilbur. They'd had their back turned to him all that conversation.

"What is it?" He asked, kindly.

Wilbur smiled. "Well you see the school runs an after-school club for gay people. I was wondering if you two would be interested in joining."

Danny didn't hesitate. "Of course we'll support it." He said, eagerly.

Luke was more suspicious. "Hold on a minute, Danny." He looked at Wilbur. "Let me clarify this. It's a club FOR gays? So the people in it ARE gay?"

"Or Bi or Les." Wilbur said evenly. "Why? Is it a problem?" He said with just the hint of malice in his voice.

Luke immediately shook his head in assurance, looking at Danny who had his hand to his face and had gone strawberry red. "No, no problem. I just think there's been a slight misunderstanding. I think my friend here…"

"I thought it was a club for gay supporter's not gay people." Danny explained into his hand.

Wilbur was looking confused. "So you two aren't gay?"

"No we're fippen well not." Luke snapped, before catching himself.

"We're not gay, or bi." Danny clarified. "We're straight."

Wilbur blinked. Then laughed. "Well, this is embarrassing! I'm sorry to say, but you two were brought to my attention by the fact everyone is talking about you."

"Yeah we already dealt with that earlier on in the week. Danny was mobbed by girls, not a pretty sight…"

"No." Wilber let out a short laugh before carrying on. "I mean…oh this is embarrassing…the girls in this school seems to think that you two are together, an item."

Danny and Luke looked at each other and then back at Wilber. "We're not!" Luke said, holding his arms up. "I swear!"

"Yeah, I gathered. My fault, sorry, I shouldn't have listened to gossip. Should have waited till there was some sort of confirmation." Wilber scratched the back of his head. "Sooo…I was going to give you these leaflets and tuff, but you obviously don't need them. So, er…"

"Bye." Luke grabbed Danny and left.

Ava and Sam were waiting outside.

"So what did he want? Supervillain? Ah, I know! He was one of the avengers in disguise." Sam said, leaping around both Danny and Luke.

"Don't be stupid Sam. What was he really?" Ava asked, looking straight at Luke.

"He was explaining different after-school clubs to us. We turned them all down, got to much stuff to do." Luke lied.

Back at the Tri-carrier. Luke was in his room, chewing the end of his pencil trying to work on homework.

"Luke?" he jumped upon the sound of Danny's voice. God that dude was quiet.

"Yep?" Luke said, smiling.

"We're…not telling Ava and Sam about today are we?"

"God no. Can you imagine the ribbing Sam would give us?"

Danny smiled gently. "Yes, yes I can."

"hey." Luke re-arranged himself so he was sitting on his bed instead of lying on it. "You're good at maths aren't you? Can you help me with this question? I swear the teacher likes seeing us fail."

Danny gave a laugh at that, sitting down next to him. "Of course I can my friend. First of all…"


	22. Doom

**Hey! I'm back, sorry for not updating for ages, but I've been focusing on my other stories. Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited and reviewed, including my guest reviewers and in answer to one of your questions, no in my mind Danny and Luke aren't gay. **

**Fury and Coulson aren't I this chapter as I couldn't find a natural place for them to appear. **

**The leader quote is from **_**Arnold H. Glasow. **_**The one about the past I've heard but don't know who said it. **

**This chapter takes place after doomed, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Does anyone know how to fly this thing?" Luke heard Sam ask as him, Danny, Ava and Peter made it down to the transport. He had a weird sense of Deja vue at that.

"Not. Happening, bucket head. C'mon let's go." Peter said, obviously irritated.

"Yeah, I am not risking another lecture from Fury. Once was enough, we're going." Ava ordered. Still Sam didn't move. She sighed. "Well I'm out. I'm not being involved in this." And true to her word she marched out.

"I got this." Luke said confidently and with that he walked over to Sam, picked him up, slung him over his shoulder, ignored him pounding on his back and carried him out the transport. "I should have done this two hours ago." He smiled to Danny.

Luke put Sam down when he was a suitable distance away from the transport, I.E. outside his room.

"I can walk you know." Sam snapped before slamming his door.

Peter sighed. "Well I'm out. Aunt May will be going nuts, I was supposed to be back an hour ago." And with that he started to walk away, and then paused at the end of the corridor to turn and say. "Hey, er, see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow friend." Danny said as Luke waved, then winced. "What's wrong, friend?"

"Eh, it's nothing."

"Something that causes the strongest teenager in the world, or at least America, to wince is not nothing. Now spill."

"Er, you know when that doombot attacked us?"

"I remember it like it happened only an hour ago." Danny said with just a touch of snark.

"Well, it got my shoulder. With a knife."

Danny's eyes went wide in alarm. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah fine, it'll just bruise. But it's still painful."

"Apologies."

"What're you apologising for? You didn't try and knife me." Luke pointed out, leaning against the wall.

"I led the doombot to you."

"Yeah and kicked away the titchy one that was irritating the hell out of me, thanks for that by the way. Don't focus on the past, focus on the future."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Is that a proverb I hear?"

"I think it is, yeah. I've been hanging around you too much. Not that that's a bad things, I mean, er, I'll shut up now. It was good of Parker to try and take the blame for the failed mission, wasn't it?"

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit." Danny recited.

Luke grinned. "No need to translate that one, I understood it perfectly. "

"About time." Danny smirked. "We've only been friends just over a year now."

Luke's face took on a serious look at that. "Yeah, talkin' of that I've been meaning to ask, are you going back to Kun Lun soon?"

Danny looked confused at that. "Not…that I know of, no. Why?"

"Well they let you stay a year didn't they? For a year of shield training? It's been a year."

Danny face cleared in understanding. "Oh no, erm, they meant actual training which starts when we have a leader, which we've only had for the past month. Monks are pretty specific like that. So you're stuck with me for another 11 months I'm afraid."

"Oh god, how will I survive?" Luke said sarcastically. Danny rolling his eyes punched him on the shoulder and Luke winced again.

"Oh, sorry."

"No prob. Good thing I'm invulnerable isn't it? Hey, you wanna go play a video game?"

"Sure if you don't mind losing."

"Who says I'll lose?" Luke asked as they walked towards the chill-out room.

"The TV every time you lose to me?" Danny chuckled.

Luke burst out laughing before saying. "Oh it is ON fortune boy!"


	23. The problem with being recognised

**Hey! Sorry I haven't updated for so long, but I've been busy.**

**Anyway this chapter came from a suggestion from SilverBlade [Guest]. **

**Also for Swansung of Riverclan, I liked the sound of your suggestion and yes it's definitely up for discussion should you ever get an account! If you do PM me and we'll talk more. **

**Warning, cursing.**

**Anyway, let's crack on shall we? See chapter 1 for disclaimer.**

"I'm bored." Luke moaned out loud, lounging on the sofa, tuning in and out of the football.

"Are you?" Danny said with considerable dis-interest, flicking through the pages of the book he was trying to study.

"Yeah. I wanna DO something. Anything."

"Meditate?"

"Anything but that. I'm already board Danny, do you think I want to risk dying of boredom?"

"You could have just said no." Danny said, pointedly.

Luke groaned. "Yeah okay, sorry. But seriously, what can we do?"

"We?"

"You're flicking through the pages of that book at about twenty pages every ten seconds, even you don't read that fast. You've lost interest, haven't you?"

Danny nodded and closing the book, placed it on the arm chair. "Five minutes ago yes. Okay you have my attention, what are we going to do?"

Luke racked his brains but only came up with one plausible solution. "Mall?"

Danny crinkled his nose and looked over at Luke. "I thought you hated that place? Don't I remember you saying 'I don't usually go to malls?'"

"Yeah exactly, usually. I can be tempted, and cases of extreme boredom tend to trigger it. C'mon let's go."

Danny got up, stretching as he did so. "Fine, but you're coming into 'Scences' with me."

Luke looked at him. "What?"

"Scences. The place that sells candles and incense…"

"Oh yeah, the smelly shop I know that one. Fine, but only if you come into a sport shop with me." It wasn't that Danny didn't like sports, it was just that he didn't see the appeal of sport shops.

Danny dramatically rolled his eyes before huffing. "Fine. Can we get some food as well?"

"Fine but you're paying."

"Of course."

Half an hour later they were in Midtown Mall and the first thing Luke did was drag Danny to the nearest sport shop and spend half an hour looking stuff before deciding on a football top.

Next they went to get something to eat. Danny crinkled his nose when he saw the corndog stand Luke was heading to. "Luke? Do I have to remind you?"

"What?"

"I don't eat meat."

"I know, this is for me, the main food court is up there." Luke waved a hand in the right direction. "So we'll grab my stuff and then go and you can get whatever you want?"

"Carrot and Houmous roll up."

"You can get that, then. Just stay here a second…"

So Luke set of and Danny was left alone. About two minutes later he heard a guy's voice from behind him. "Is that who I think it is? It is! Danny Rand!" Danny rolled his eyes a bit, he was used to being recognised but it did get a little tiresome at times. "Hey! Rand!"

Plastering a smile on his face Danny turned around to be met with a fist to the face. "Argh! What the hell!" He said thickly, grabbing at his nose.

The guy who'd punched him was smiling widely with his stupid mates, making three of them in total, also smiling. "Arh! What the hell?" He mimicked. "How dare your peasant fist come into contact with my posh face?" His mates burst out laughing and high fived him as Danny glared at him.

"I'd suggest you leave now." He warned, trying to ignore the crowd of people filming it on their phones.

"I'd suggest you leave now. You suggest!? Sorry, is this the 21st century or the 18th?

Danny stared at him weighing up his options, then spotted Luke coming back round the corner and smiled.

"What're you smiling at, you rich bastard!?" The gut shirked.

Meanwhile Luke's face was resembling a storm, having just come in in enough time to hear that sentence. Throwing his corndogs to the ground he ran past the crows who _weren't doing anything_ and picked up the main idiots mates by the scuff of their collars and literally banged their heads together.

At which point Danny made a quick decision and using his feet whisked the leader's legs from under him leading him to fall on his butt.

"Nice one, bro." Luke said, smiling as the two guys he'd casually thrown to the side, groaned jointly.

The leader got up but rather than look for another fight he dragged his friends up and all three left.

The crows started applauding at that and one little boy ran up to them. "That was so cool! You were all like POW! Wow! How'd you do it?"

Luke's mind went blank. "Er…"

Thankfully Danny was on the ball. "Judo. It's a martial art. You can learn it, I believe there's a dojo a couple of streets away from here."

"Do you go there?"

Without hesitation Danny had an answer. "No we're privately trained. Now if you don't mind I think we'll go back now…" And grabbing Luke's arm he parted his way through the crowd.

"Are you all right?" Luke said in alarm as they left the mall.

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"Why are we leaving then?"

"I'll explain once we're home."

Once on the tri-carrier, Luke turned to Danny. "Explain then."

"Well if we'd stayed and just gone on with our business people would be suspicious because normally after people have been attacked they want to go home, they never just want to get on with what they'd been doing before. And our cover was normal people at that mall."

"Ah, I get it. By the way, seriously nice footwork with that idiot. You know I sometimes forget you can use your feet I'm so used to seeing you punch things."

"Well that was out."

Luke scrunched his face up in confusion. "Why?"

"My training means that whenever I punch at people my fists automatically glow, unless I put a lot, and I mean a lot, of effort into not making them glow. And I'm afraid my emotions were getting the better of me in that situation so there was no way I could have done that. As it is I need to meditate, so if you'll excuse me…"

"Yeah, yeah cool. I need to grab something to eat anyway…"

"What happened to the corndogs you were going to get?"

"Threw 'em to the side to help you out."

"Oh, thanks." Danny said, genually.

"No prob, what did you think, I was going to let that jerk punch you? Yeah right."

Danny gave another smile before setting of to his room. Luke gave another grin to himself as he remembered the guys look of terror as he saw Luke throwing his buddies to the side.

"That what they get for messing with Power Man and Iron Fist." He muttered to himself before stalking of to the dining room.


	24. Why you should never listen to the news

**Hey! I hope you all had a good holiday and sorry for not updating for about a month. **

**Also thank you to Nyan Wolf, MidnightPhantomFire, and Guest for the reviews, I loved them all. As for Guest, I liked your idea and have incorporated it into this chapter.**

**Silver Blade, thank you for your review, it really made my day. **

**Anyway, third chapter takes place at the end of 'Flight of the Iron Spider', see chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"That was so cool of Fury to not freak out." Sam said as he, Danny, Luke and Ava walked down the corridor. "I mean I thought he'd at least be mad about your suit, right Parker…Parker? Hey, where's Parker?"

Danny frowned, turning back around. "That's weird. He was right behind us…"

"I heard Fury asking to speak with him a minute." Ava explained. "Good job one of us has working ears."

"In our defence, you are part cat." Sam said.

"I am not!"

"Are to."

"Am not."

"Are to."

"Ooh! Sam, I am going to kill you!"

"Gotta catch me first!" And with that Sam and Ava took of down the corridor leaving Danny and Luke to jointly sigh.

"I hope Spideys gonna ditch the suit now." Luke said as they resumed walking. "If I see him in it again I might actually punch him into a wall."

"All he needs to do is believe in himself." Danny said thoughtfully. "I believe he's managed to do that now, if the fight with the Living Laser was anything to go by. I think he'll be fine."

"Cool, wanna chill out a bit?" Luke asked as they passed the chill-out room.

"Sure. I'm gonna go grab my headphones; I'm in desperate need of music." Danny walked of as Luke rolled his eyes and went into the chill-out room. In about five minutes he had the TV set up and on the football, just as Danny walked in.

"That took you longer than I thought it would."

"I temporarily mislaid them. I put them on my side-board this morning and they just have slipped of at some point."

"Ah, well I'm watching football, so…"

"Do not worry my friend; I'll be on the sofa."

They settled down for about 10 minutes until Ava poked her head round the door. "Fury wants us to go to the costume-room. Apparently Spidey needs some help tidying up."

Luke looked at her in disbelief. "Since when did we become damage control?" He complained. The game had been getting to a good point.

Danny was already up. "C'mon, let's go, it takes more than one man to lift a mountain."

"I thought you were going to ditch the armour?" Was the first thing out of Luke's mouth once they'd rounded up Sam and dragged him to the costume room. Peter was there, still wearing that ridiculous iron spider suit.

"Fury made it into a back-pack for when I gain control of it a bit easier." Peter explained, pressing a button that made the armour shrink down into a back-pack.

"Oh, that's cool, let me see!" Sam said, exactly grabbing it.

"Hey! Give it back, bucket-head!"

"You gotta get it first!"

"Sam, you bone-head, that's thousands of pounds worth of armour!"

"SAM! Just give it back to him before I kill you both!" Luke automatically looked at Ava, before realising with a jolt that it was actually Danny who had yelled. The blonde had his hand to his fore-head looking a bit like an exasperated teacher. Sheepishly Sam handed Peter the armour back who then put it back in its container thing.

"Hey, man you alright?" Luke asked him quietly once he'd got him alone from the others. In the background he could hear Ava yelling orders left right and centre. "You seem stressed. Which is worrying because you're never stressed."

Danny sighed. "I checked my phone while I was looking for my headphones." He explained. "Someone at Rand Industries sent me this." Subtly, with a glance at Sam he handed Luke his phone.

Luke looked at it, quite worried now, it was safe to say, and read the words. 'Is Danny Rand Gay? '

"Sweet Christmas, are you serious!?" He said out loud, catching the attention of the others.

"What? What's wrong?" Ava questioned. Before Luke could answer her though Danny's phone was stolen by Sam.

"Give it!" Danny snapped, lunging at him.

Sam ducked and dived while jointly reading out loud. "'Is Danny Rand Gay? Danny Rand, 17 year old CEO of Rand Industries was attacked at Midtown Mall by three boys on Saturday the 7th…'"

"You were attacked?" Peter said in disbelief, as Danny aimed a punch at Sam's nose, who cleverly dodged it.

Ignoring the interruption Sam carried on. "'He was saved however by a black guy of approximately a similar age.' Well, that's clearly Luke. ' There have been many sources of information about this mysterious guy and…" He dodged a kick. "'…and we, Gossip Magazine, have narrowed down the possibilities until just two remain…'" Sam leapt on top of a couple of boxes. "'Either Danny Rand has hired a new bodyguard, and let's face it, he needs one if he gets attacked like that all the time…'"

"Sam!" Peter said in alarm, shooting a look at Danny who was practically red with rage by now.

"What? That's what it says! This is the article, 'or he's gay and has a very over-protective boyfriend!" Sam let out a loud laugh that practically caused the room to shake. "Luke!? Danny's boyfriend!? That's hilarious! I mean, you're straight, aren't you?" Sam questioned as Danny finally grabbed his phone back. "I mean we had that conversation about it after you got mobbed by girls a couple of weeks ago…"

"Yes I am." Danny cut over him. "I'm…straight."

"So Luke's not your boyfriend?" Ava checked.

"You know he's not!" Danny snapped at the same time as Luke said.

"Oh, hell no!"

Ava held her hands up in surrender. "Yeah, alright. I'm just thinking how disappointed the girls in school will be…I mean, you KNOW there was that rumour going round about you two being gay, right?"

"Yeah, we heard of it." Luke muttered, remembering the embarrassing conversation with Wilbur.

Sam however couldn't let it go. "Are you sure? I mean, you did hide behind him earlier on."

"Yeah, because I was in danger of being blinded by the Living Lunatic!" Danny argued.

"And you wanted your boyfriend to protect you? How sweet…Argh!" he said 'Argh' because Danny, having had enough kicked the boxes Sam was standing on causing them to collapse to the floor. Sam was alright though, only because Luke caught him.

Looking up Sam gulped as he took in Luke's 'not-at-all-impressed' look. "…Should I shut up now?"

"Might be an idea." Luke said, grimly.

Sam nodded. "Okay will do. Can you put me down now?"

They managed to clear the rest of the stuff without too much happening, at the end Luke caught up with Danny.

"Hey Danny. Err, look I know it probably won't because everyone in the school now knows that me and you aren't going out, but if anyone does give you hassle just let me know alright? I'll, err, set 'em straight, if you know what I mean." Luke smiled, raising a fist.

"I think I'll be alright."

"Really? But it's in the news."

"Luke, everything goes in the news at some point. We'll probably be talked about for a couple of days, at most, then something new will happen and that'll be the talk of the town instead. Nothing sticks with the news, trust me."

Luke gave a shrug. "Alright if you say so…"


	25. Just your typical Field Trip

**Hey! So, first update of 2016,in February, Yay! Sorry for the delay, I was debating whether or not to do anything with 'Field Trip'. Eventually I decided yes, so this chapter takes place at the end of 'Field Trip'**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Are you lot alright?" Coulson asked as he hurried back into the museum.

"Ah, son of coal." Thor announced happily upon seeing him.

Coulson smiled back. "Nice to see you, Thor. Fury's on his way." He turned to the team. "I sent the rest of the class home and called Fury, who's on his way. You may have a bit of explaining to do tomorrow. The rest of the class where very concerned. The girls especially where concerned for your safety, Daniel." Coulson's mouth twitched into a smile at the end of that sentence.

Danny groaned a little as Luke laughed. "Introducing the one the only, Daniel Rand!" He said, teasingly. "Capable of attracting any women no matter where he is!"

Danny elbowed Luke in the ribs. "Shut up!"

"I'm here. What happened?" Fury swarmed into the room. "Are those Asgardian weapons?" He asked in disbelief upon seeing them.

"Yep. Carved by grumpy, or dopey. I'm still deciding which one he is." Peter said cheerfully. Fury glanced at Coulson who shrugged.

"They were carved by the Master Forger." Thor explained.

"They're not staying here." Fury warned. He had enough on his plate without adding Asgardian weapons into the mix.

"Do not worry. I'll take them back; the dwarf will keep them in case they're needed again."

"Are you sure we can't just keep one?" Sam asked, longingly stroking the handle of his weapon.

"No!" Fury and Coulson said at the same time.

"I was just asking! Sheesh." So one by one they parted with the weapons and went back to the tri-carrier, Fury with them.

Coulson waited until they'd left before checking with Thor. "So these weapons were designed to handle each of their weaknesses, right? How did they get on?"

Thor scratched his head. "I wasn't looking at them too much, I'll admit. But they handled each of the weapons magnificently. They will make fine warriors. Now, I'm afraid I have to leave you, son of Coal. Until next time!"

"Until next time." Coulson echoed, waving. He was happy, the fact they managed to use the weapons effectively meant they must have worked on their weaknesses. That was something to report back to Fury alright. Meanwhile he had an incident report to do for the school board. He sighed as he made his way to the tri-carrier. The joys of being the principle…

Meanwhile on the tri-carrier the team was on a bit of a high.

"Did you see me wielding that axe?" Sam asked, waving his hands around to demonstrate. "Oh! That was awesome!"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Whatever bucked head. I better get back, Aunt May's gonna go nuts when she see the covering on the news." He web-swung out the window.

"I have homework." Ava stated, going to her room.

Luke frowned. "It was a field trip." He pointed out. "We didn't have any homework."

"Its next weeks." Ava explained before disappearing.

"Well, I've got some very important video games that need my attention, so see you tomorrow." Sam said, before setting of himself.

Luke looked at Danny. "Wanna go to my room and chill out?"

"That would be very nice, my friend. Do you mind if I mediate a bit? I need to reflect on the events of the day."

"Sure if you don't mind me being nosy first." Luke said, shooting a smile at his best friend.

"Go ahead."

"So you and Scorpion were educated separately, right?"

"Home schooled, yes."

"What did you learn?"

"Basic Maths, English and Science. We studied Ancient Languages, Norse Mythology, Plants…"

"Plants!?"

"Green things with leaves." Danny said, as they reached Luke's room.

"Yeah, I know what they are! Why were you studying them?"

"Some plants are poisoness, some aren't. I suppose it would be better to say we studied nature. We studied animals. We also did Martial Arts as a lesson, which is where my problems with spontaneity come in. I was always taught by the monks; look for the weak spot, attack there. The monks don't do 'spontaneity'. Yeah, that was pretty much it…oh. We studied the nine worlds, including earth as well. Okay, yeah I think that would be it, oh, and body-language. Yeah, okay now that's it."

"So…when you got the iron fist…what did you do? I mean apart from celebrate."

Danny looked confused. "I'm not sure what you mean my friend."

"So, you've been training for years, you get the iron fist. What happens then, more training?"

Danny shook his head. "No, you see all training received prior to that is designed for the Iron Fist, the main difference when you get it is that your fists glow when you punch stuff and you have the ability to focus Chi Energy. That's how the monks new I was right for it, because I mastered as the art forms needed."

Luke nodded. "Cool."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What did you do for the five years you dropped out of school?"

Luke shrugged. "Looked for my parents, cruised around, and tried to stay out of trouble. Find ways to eat and drink, which did involve stealing. Try to figure out how to develop my powers without anyone finding out, which is way more difficult than it might sound, by the way. Err…yeah. Not a lot."

"I just wondered, that's all. Now if you don't mind, serious medication time required."

"Knock yourself out. I'm gonna read a bit." Luke said, settling himself on his bed and reaching for an apple from the fruit bowl he kept next to his bed as Danny positioned himself comfortably and began medicating.


	26. The son of a buisinessman

**Hey! Roxy Goth here with the next updates. Thank you so much for all my reviews, Favourites and followers.**

**Nyan Wolf – Glad you're enjoying it.**

**Silver Blade – Thank you.**

**Guest – I'm glad you like the chemistry between Luke and Danny; I do try to keep it as real as possible. I liked your suggestion and have incorporated it into this chapter.**

**Fan – Thanks for your review, glad this is the story you've been looking for. As for your other note, don't worry this chapter is free of it. Can't promise for future ones though. Warnings will be accompanying each individual chapter though. **

**Danny's success proverb come from Theodore Roosevelt. His dreams one I don't know where the original quote came from.**

**Warning: Maths and business talk. This may seem like a filler chapter, which it kinds is, but it will have an important bearing on the story. **

**See chapter one for the disclaimer, thank you and on with said story. **

Luke and Danny had been relaxing for about half an hour, Luke on the bed attempting to do homework and Danny on the floor meditating.

"Oh for cryin' out loud." Luke interrupted the peaceful silence by banging his head a couple of times against the back-board of the bed.

Danny, not even opening his eyes, replied. "What is the matter, my friend?"

"Maths homework. I hate maths. Science I'm good at, English I can cope with, Maths is just annoying."

"Maths and Science go together. It is impossible to do the calculations in science without knowledge of maths. If you can do one, why not the other?" Danny asked, genially curious.

"My folks were Biologist, Danny. Not physicists. They did research into what caused mutants and developed serums to mimic the effects, reverse the effects or create something new. You know, fighting fire with fire." Luke explained.

"But wouldn't have that required maths to do?" Danny said, opening his eyes to look directly at Luke.

"Alright, alright the maths gene must have skipped me. Geez." Luke snapped in annoyance.

Danny got up and sat next to Luke. "What's the question?"

"Mental maths. What is 500 times 4 plus 8 times 2 divided by 2 take away 17 add 27. I mean seriously, who writes this stuff?"

"Two thousand and eighteen." Danny replied, after about 30 seconds of silence.

"What?" Luke looked at him.

"The answer. It's two thousand and eighteen."

"…How the hell did you work that out?"

"Right, let's break it down." Danny said, getting into a more comfortable position. "What's 500 times 4?"

"Two thousand."

"Plus 8."

"Two thousand and eight." Luke said, looking slightly suspicious.

"Times two."

Luke screwed his face up. "Geez, really?"

"Right, let's try it a different way." Danny got of the bed and started pacing up and down. "I think the problem is that with the bigger numbers you're trying to do it all at once. Let's break it down. Two thousand times two?"

"Four thousand."

"Eight times two?"

"16, damn, this is easy." Luke said, confidently sitting up and beginning to look slightly more animated.

"Add them together?"

"Four thousand and sixteen."

"Now the divide by two is actually kind of a trick question, because you worked that out during the first part, two thousand, plus 8, which is?"

"Two thousand and eight. Ah, so that's the answer!"

"Not quite my friend. Do not leap to conclusions. The next part of the question says take away 17."

"So that'd be two thousand and eight, take away 10 which is one thousand 9 hundred and ninety – eight. Take away 7, which is one thousand and ninety-one, right?" Luke said, beginning to get into it.

Danny smiled. "Correct. Then add 27."

"Add the seven back on, gets you back to one thousand and ninety-eight. Add the twenty which is two thousand and eighteen, right?"

Danny grinned and held out his hand for a high-five. "You've got it! See, it is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."

Luke grinned. "I get that one alright. Thanks Danny, and thankfully that was my last question." Luke slammed the book shut and chucked it in a perfect throw onto his bed-side table top, knocking only a few things over in the process.

They sat in silence for a little while Danny finished meditating and Luke just stared into space. The Luke decided to talk.

"Hey Danny, your father. What did he do? I mean, I know he owned Rand Industries, but how did he get there?"

Danny frowned, coming out of his trance. "How did he get there? Erm…as far as I'm aware he had the idea, along with his business partner, Harold Meachump. They went to a bank, explained it and the bank gave them money to set it up. Then, despite both of their deaths, it carried on being successful."

"Who owns it now? I mean, you're next in line for it, but you're here, so someone must be running it."

Danny nodded. "Jane Meachump. Harold's daughter. She's about five or six years older than me, so she's entitled to look after it. She doesn't want to though; I popped in when the monks allowed me to come back, out of curiosity. Bumped into her and we got talking. She hates it, she's looking after it partly because there's no one else and partly out of respect for her father. She's already said that if I want it when I'm 21 I can have it. If not then she'll carry on. So it's only really a matter of deciding what I want to do…be king of Kun Lun or CEO of Rand Industries." Danny trailed of after that, staring into space for a couple of seconds.

Luke vaguely wondered if he'd over-stepped a mark, but curiosity was winning out over tact. "So you have to get a loan from the bank?"

Danny nodded, slowly and Luke silently cursed. Then Danny's head shot up and he looked suddenly suspicious. "Why are you so interested anyway?"

Busted. Luke sighed and explained. "You know Hero's for Hire?"

Danny looked confused, then his face lit up. "Oh yes, the business idea you have?"

"Yeah, well I just realised yesterday I have no idea how to start putting a business together. I thought you'd be able to help me."

"Of course. Why didn't you just say so? First of all, what's the idea? Explain it to me."

"You already know." Luke pointed out.

Danny rolled his eyes, getting up of the floor and stretching. "Humour me, Luke, pretend I don't."

The strongman took a few minutes to think through what on earth he was going to say before beginning. "Well…it's called heroes for hire. As the name suggests people hire out…heroes to do things for them. Yeah."

"What kind of things?" Danny said, patiently.

"Sorry?"

"What kind of things are we talking here? Shopping? Cleaning around the house? Rescuing cats from trees? Bungee jumping of the Eiffel tower? You have to be specific, Luke."

"Right." Luke straightened up and attempted to maintain a serious composer. "So…erm…I'm sorry Danny, I'm dunno…"

"Right let's try a different way." The blonde said coolly, leaning against the wall. "Any business needs a market. Who are you aiming this at?"

"Other heroes." Luke said immediately.

Danny's eyebrows went up. "Other heroes…so your idea is to have other heroes, people who already have super powers, to hire out other people who have superpowers…for what purpose? I can't see where you're coming from."

"Right…now, powers, powers are good. However they're also specific." Luke explained, beginning to wave his hands about in order to empathise what he was saying. "Like I'm strong and invulnerable, but I can't shape shift, use telekinetic energy or swing through buildings like webs does. You've got that chi-energy thing going on and awesome martial arts, but you can't talk to animals like Ava can. Sam can fly and blast people with energy, but he's not strong. Ava…"

"I get it…" Danny interrupted quickly. "So so far what I'm getting is your plan is to hire heroes out to cover other heroes' weaknesses. What's the pay rate?"

"Erm…" Luke scratched the back of his neck. "The customer decides the price." He said decidedly.

"Do you get the money upfront or after you've done the deed? Or half and half?" Danny pressed, unwilling to let this go. "How many heroes are you planning to be part of this venture? Do they get rented out, so to speak, one at a time, or as a team. If it's one at a time, do the others get a share or just the person who was hired? Is it an even split if they're hired as a team or would you, as they ringleader, get a bigger share?"

Luke rested his head in his hands. "Geez, Rand, I dunno. I hadn't really thought this far ahead."

Danny smiled gently and rested a hand on Luke's back. "I apologise my friend. I realise this may have been a bombardment. It's just you need to think of all the avenues, you can't leave any rock unturned. If you do it could turn into a weakness, and that's the last thing a respectable business wants."

"Yeah, I suppose." Luke sighed and looked at his friend. "I need to think this out a bit more, don't I?"

"Just a tad." Danny said, laughing a bit. "It's a good idea though; it just needs a few tweaks. I'll tell you now your main problem will be getting the money."

"What'd you mean?"

"Well, say you did do this pitch to a bank, you'd be blowing your cover. You can't set up the business you want without doing that. It needs to be registered, that is if you want it to be a legal business…"

"Of course I do!" Luke said, immediately.

Danny shrugged. "Well then, frankly it's either you follow your dream and give up your super-hero identity, or you keep your identity and give up the dream."

Luke groaned and threw himself back against the wall. "Why does following your dreams have to be so hard?"

"If your dreams don't scare you they aren't big enough." Danny said, smiling. He checked his watch. "C'mon, it's dinner time. Ava and Sam will be waiting for us."

"Alright. Oh, and Danny?"

"Yes friend?"

"We've never had this conversation, alright? I don't want them knowing about it till I've thought it out more."

Danny nodded. "Of course not." With that Danny left the room.

Luke sighed before dragging himself of the bed. If nothing else had come of that conversation, Danny was definitely the son of a business man.


	27. Strange

**Hey! Roxy Goth here, sorry for not updating for like, a month and a half but I've been really busy. My apprenticeship has ended and I'm currently job hunting. Yay. BTW, I have looked for the episode on Catch-up and YouTube and it doesn't seem to be on there, not the full episode anyway. So I've looked at the clips and looked up the description in the episode outline on the Marvel Database. Because of that I'm not exactly sure the ending position of all the characters. So sorry if they're a little of.**

**This takes place after Strange. See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"What the heck was all that about?" Ava asked from the doorway, having just seen Sam scream and run at the sight of a bunny.

Peter finished wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Me and Danny have found out that bucked-head is afraid of bunnies! Of all the things in the universe…"

Luke folded his arms and Ava, un-impressed said. "So you decide to use his fears against him? Very mature, Parker."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay! Geez, I was kidding. I'll go get him…"

"I'm coming with you." Ava informed him as Peter edged his way around her and Luke while Danny watched on, expression neutral.

"What!? Why!?"

"To make sure you apologise, dweeb. Now move it!" As Peter and Ava argued down the corridor Luke came inside the room and shut the door, looking at Danny strangely.

"Okay, now I gotta ask. What was all that about?"

"Peter was using Sam's fears against him." Danny outlined, still leaning back in his chair.

Luke rolled his eyes. "Well I got that much, Danny, I ain't thick. I can follow a conversation…"

"I never said you couldn't."

"What I meant was how did Parker know about Sam's fear of bunnies? Me and Ava didn't even know!"

Danny got up, stretched so hard his arms seemed to click and said calmly. "For this story to work, we must first start at the beginning. You all fell asleep yes?"

"Right."

"During that time I was able to save myself, due to training and I rescued Peter as well."

"Why him? Why not me?" Luke was actually quite hurt, he was sure he could have helped.

Danny sat back down, stretching his feet out on the table again. "I'll get to that in a minute, be patient my friend. Then we went to my old mentor, Doctor Strange, and before you ask no I haven't mentioned him before. Now, Doctor Strange was the one who taught me how to use my chi energy, he's kind of like a reality warper, to give you a image to work with. Now he's very distrustful of people without some kind of magical property or people who don't know about it. Which is partly why I went for spider. He has a very very faint kind of chi-energy in the form of his spider-sense that tells him when he's in trouble, that counts."

"With you so far." Luke said, taking a seat next to Danny.

"The guy who set up this entire thing was called Nightmare, think of the joker, with a grey face instead of white, a back afro and sitting on a horse and you've got him."

Luke held up a hand. "Oh, I can see where this is going. A guy with a name like that, he's gotta be able to trap people in there nightmares, right?"

"Precisely."

"Which explains the weird dream I had." Luke muttered, out loud. He caught himself immediately after and sharply turned to his friend. "You didn't hear that, did you?"

Danny considered for a second, but seeing Luke's face decided to go for a bit of a white lie. "No. Not at all. What dream?"

"Never you mind. Anyway, what happened next?"

"Myself, Doctor Strange and Peter managed to defeat him, and once he'd gone you all woke up from your nightmares." Danny said, simply.

"That easy?"

"Well, no, there was quite a lot of hassle actually. But you don't get gold without a bit of digging."

"Right." Luke got up. "Want to go make sure Sam's still alive?"

Danny pretended to consider, then saw Luke's face. "Alright, alright, I'm joking. Let's go."


	28. The great debate

**Hey! I'm sorry for not updating for a while. But I'm back now, with a chapter revolving around the episode 'Snow Day'. This scene takes place after Sam says 'I have an idea' and just before the cut to show the team have taken a plane.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"I have an idea." Sam said, proudly.

Peter glared at him. "And what would that be, bucket head?"

"We take a pane and go somewhere warmer." There was a few seconds of silence till Ava and Peter said, at the same time,

"No way, Sam!"

"Get real bucket head!"

"Why not? I mean, none of us want to work out in the cold right? I mean, winter survivel training? When are we ever going to need that?"

"If any of you should ever come to Kun Lun." Danny replied, smiling bit.

Luke gave a grin. "He's got a point, Sam."

Sam waved his hand, dismissively. "Ah, whatever. Our powers will help! My light can just help warm me up. Luke's invulnerable skin will help keep out the chill…"

"Actually, it doesn't work like that." Luke said, a touch irritably. "My skin is bullet-proof. But I can only feel extreme weather of either sort."

"Like the type of weather Coulson was talking about?" Ava said snarkliy. "I think winter survival training would be good for us."

"Why?" Sam argued. "We've got our own Ice God, here!" He indicated Danny, who immediately held up a hand.

"Count me out of this, please Sam."

"Hey, that's a good point, do you already know this stuff?" Peter asked, generally interested.

"Well, yes. Kun Lun is covered in snow and ice, remember? I know how to live in the cold, I know how to put up shelters in the cold, I know how to survive generally."

"He also knows about plants." Luke chimed in.

"And animals…" Danny said, grinning a little mischievously as he realised Sam was getting wound up.

"He also knows about Norse Mythology."

"Winter survival training would have come in useful against the Frost Giants…"

By now Ava and Peter were laughing. Sam, now thoroughly fed up snapped.

"Alright, geez! You now a lot about stuff, okay, geez, no need to rub it in…now back to the matter at hand. Do you guys want to freeze doing Winter Survival Training, or go to an island where it's hot, we have the whole place to ourselves and we can do whatever we want with Fury or Coulson breathing down our necks!?" Sam finished ranting and glared at them all.

Peter was the first to speak. "I'm with bucked head on this one. Beach does sound nice."

Luke nodded. "Between being able to feel the heat and the cold, I'd go hot anytime, I'm in."

Danny nodded slowly. "It would be a good idea to experience different climates and surroundings. You never learn about life stuck in one place."

"Are you in or not?" Sam asked, exasperatedly.

"Oh he's in." Luke's smile was going from ear to ear as he reached over and high-fived Danny.

Four pairs of expectant eyes turned to Ava, who sighed, contemplated and then growled. "Fine! We'll go." The boys cheered and she raised her voice to be heard above them. "But if Fury or Coulson asks, I was against it from the start."

"Whatever. I'll check the database for somewhere nice to go and then we'll leave, good?" Sam checked receiving eager thumbs up from all his teammates. He punched the air. "Alright! Let's go!"


	29. Of Cleaning and Books

**Hey! Hope your all well. This next update takes place at the end of Damage. This was originally one chapter, but will now divide into two because it was getting stupidly long, thank you. **

**Thank you to TabbyCat for your review, in answer to your question, yes Luke's weird dream was the nightmare from the episode. **

**BTW Mat Porter was in the episode. He was the guy Spidey suspected of working with the Pulveriser. **

**I have also written an alternative version of this episode called 'Fight gone wrong' if any of you are interested. **

**I do not own Ultimate Spiderman, any associated characters, Hero's for Hire or The Caveman Principles as written by Carl-Rosier Jones. [Bet you're curious now, aren't you?]**

"Did you just hand Nick Fury cleaning equipment?" Luke asked in amusement as Peter joined them.

"Well, he is the leader. He has to set an example."

"He doesn't look very happy." Ava observed.

"Ah, he's never happy. He'll be fine."

Meanwhile Mat walked over to Fury. "Bad luck, Nick."

"Yeah I know. Spiderman's never going to let me live this one down. Thanks for making sure they didn't kill themselves by the way."

"Happy to help. Gimme that, we can deal with it. I'm sure the Head of SHIELD has more important things to be panicking about that this."

"You got that right." Fury handed the cleaning equipment back to Mat before turning round and clapping his hands together. "TEAM! Tri-Carrier now. Spiderman – you can go home. But I want a full report in the morning."

Spider saluted. "Will do chief." And web-slung of.

Fury watched him go before following the rest of his trainees. "Now, I want all of you to get some rest. You've had a hard couple of days, and I need you bright and early for training tomorrow. So that means no late-night video games, Sam."

Sam threw his hands in the air as Fury stalked of. "He's psychic. I swear he's actually psychic."

Ava waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever, bozo. I'll be in my room, any of you disturb me for a reason that isn't life and death and I will claw you, got it?"

"Got it." The boys chorused.

"Night, Ava." Danny added afterwards. She smiled gently before walking off.

"Wanna go to my room and chill out a bit?" Luke asked Danny.

Danny paused before saying. "Actually, if it is not too much trouble my friend, I'd prefer to go to my room. I'm in desperate need to meditate, and it's easier in my room. You know with the candles and the incense and all."

Luke brushed it off. "Course. No problem."

"Of course you are welcome to come with me. So long as you don't my being completely unsociable for an hour."

"Nah, not at all. I can read my book."

"You read books?" Sam asked, sounding generally amazed much to Luke's extreme annoyance.

"Course I read books! Whatdya think I am a dummy? Yu know what? Don't answer that." He added, realising where that statement left him.

Once Sam had gone to his own room and Luke had retrieved his book he joined Danny.

"What book are you reading, my friend?" The blonde asked him.

"The Caveman Principles by a guy called Carl Rosier-Jones."

Danny screwed his nose up. "The what?"

"Basically it's a book about different types of personalities, explained to us by using cavemen as examples." Luke explained, as best he could.

"That sounds weird."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, cos you read such normal books. Let's see…" He walked over to Danny's book shelf, being very careful not to tread on any of the millions of candles he had scattered around the place. "Mystic Rocks and their properties. Mystic Rocks and where to find them. Guide to Dragons. Mystical Artefacts…that actually sounds quite interesting, can I borrow it after you?"

"I've already read it about five times. You can take it now if you wish."

Luke considered before looking down at the book in his hand. "Nah…I promised myself I'd finish this one. Cos you know, otherwise you're starting one and then you never finished it and the next thing you know you've got 20 million half-read books lyin' around your room. Out of interest how'd you get these books anyway? You didn't come here with any, and I doubt I'd be able to find 'How to channel your chi-energy effectively' at the local Waterstones."

"When I saw Doctor Stanger last time I asked him afterwards to bring me some books back. He was very obliging."

"You run out of books here? What, the Shield Library wasn't enough; you had to get some in from outside sources." Luke said, teasingly.

"Shut up. I have been here a year and a half now. Well...just about year and four months, give or take."

"Not that you're counting down or anything."

"Of course not. The point is I've got through a lot of books in that time"

"Right" A moments silence then Luke spoke, so quietly that Danny hardly heard him. "How long have you got left?"

"7 months."

"Then it's back to Kun Lun."

"That's the plan."

"And you're sticking to the plan?"

Danny sighed. "It's not up to me, Luke. Believe me; if I could I'd stay. I love it here."

"Can't you just insist you stay? I mean you are the King, aren't you?" Luke was suddenly very fascinated with the spine of the nearest book.

Danny smiled softly. "It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid, Luke. I may be the king, but I'm still only 17. I can't legally be king until I'm 18, which is in May which is three months away still, the monks are effectively my advisors. I have to listen to them."

Luke sighed. "Yeah. I get it."

There was a heavy silence, until Danny broke it. "Thanks, by the way, for today."

"What?"

"You saved me? From Piledriver?"

"I did?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Well you kicked the car away from him as he was about to pound me, so if it was an accident, which I'm beginning to think it might have been due to your completely forgetting it, it was a pretty flippin good one. You saved me from a trip to the SHIELD Med Bay." The blond shuddered.

Luke grinned. "Ah yeah, I did, didn't I? We were pretty good there, I saved you, and then you knocked him out…that was awesome. And we even finished each other's sentences, we're that good. And even better, we finished each other's sentence in an epic-one liner rather than a completely sappy way. And I'm gonna stop talking now, cos this s taking a weird turn…"

Danny burst out laughing. "Yes, yes it is. Now if you don't mind, I really do need to meditate. I've lost 15 minutes already…"

"Hey, can I join you?" Luke found himself saying much to his extreme astonishment.

Danny look straight at him clearly confused. "I thought you said you were never meditating again? Weren't you going to read, anyway?"

Luke looked down at the book and then back at his friend. "I can read it another time."


	30. Meditation take 2

**Hey! I'm back, thanks to all my wonderful reviewers, favourites and followers, your support means the world.**

**Quick note before we carry on. I was watching The Middle this morning and I was thinking 'this guy's voice seems really familiar' then I realised, it was Greg Cipes. I.E. Danny from Ultimate Spiderman! The crazy thing is he even looks like him, but with tattoos! I was there thinking 'this guy sounds just like Danny, he could totally play him if a movie ever came out about Iron Fist'. **

**Anyway, random fan event aside, on with the story! [See chapter 1 for the disclaimer]**

After deciding to try meditating again, Luke had now got comfortable, was sitting in the correct position and Danny had lit a few more candles. Jasmine and Lavender, which was actually quite a nice scent, Luke thought, and they were ready to start.

Well they would be if Danny wasn't darting his eyes across the room like he thought something was going to attack them. "You seem nervous." Luke told him.

Danny took a deep breath, before exhaling and saying calmly. "I'm not nervous, I'm just thinking. You didn't enjoy this last time."

"Yeah, well, that was last time. I've done way more training now."

Danny rolled his eyes a bit before explaining. "The training we've done with SHIELD is completely different, Luke. SHIELD teaches more acrobatic stuff, how to use the environment to your advantage, that kind of thing. This is completely different."

"Like how?"

"Meditation does require training, but not in the traditional sense. Erm, basically, you are building up muscles, but unlike your weight training, or SHEILD training, the only thing you're lifting is yourself. Which is obviously not an easy feat, but it doesn't build up muscles as such. What it does build up is your concentration, your endurance and helps develop your muscles overall, as opposed to weight training where typically the, er, the weight is only being applied to one part of your body, for example, your arm." Danny flexed his own for emapathis.

Luke nodded, eagerly. "Cool! So it's kinda like a whole body workout?"

"Exactly."

"So can I do this and weight lifting?"

"Can't see any reason why not, my friend. Though you do need to master this first. Where were we?"

"We hadn't started yet."

"Ah of course. So hands on your knees."

Luke did so. "Can't you do that thing when you hold your hands up like this, with your thumb and middle finger together?"

"You can, but I think it'd be better for you to get the hang of sitting like this without being in complete agony, like you were last time, before progressing onto postures. By the way, it's called the Burmese position. Don't worry; we'll be moving onto it next. One step at a time."

Luke sighed to himself. "Slow and steady wins the race." He said out loud.

"Exactly. So the next part is to contemplate emptiness. For this you need to let go of all thought. I know you find this difficult, so I want to try something…"

"Oh that sounds reassuring." Luke said sarcastically.

Danny either missed the sarcasm or, more likely, decided to ignore it. "Close your eyes." Luke did so. "Now, imagine yourself going to bed…"

"Bed." Luke echoed, beginning to think Danny had lost his mind.

"The thing you sleep in, Luke."

"Oh, ha, ha."

He heard his friend laugh before continuing. "No but seriously. Imagine you're in bed."

"Right."

"Okay, so it's calm, relaxing, dark…"

"I can work with dark." Luke chipped in. There was a silence and, even without seeing, Luke knew Danny would be glaring at him. "Sorry, your majesty, I'll be quiet I promise. Don't throw me to the dungeon."

Now Danny gave a proper laugh, before readying himself. "Luke, stop it. This is meant to be serious."

"Got it." To be honest Luke didn't know why he couldn't get his head in the game, it just felt weird.

"It's calm, relaxing and dark. You're feeling happy, secure and tired."

"Right."

"Now, you're feeling so tired that the thoughts of what you've been doing today are fading. Now ready your breathing, deep breaths in and out." Luke copied the instruction to the letter. "Very good, my friend. Now the last strands of your thoughts are disappearing and soon you are thinking of nothing…"

Luke couldn't help himself "Are you sure I'm not dying?" He joked. The millisecond he said it he wished he could take it back and the silence Danny gave him wasn't helping. He opened his eyes and was slightly alarmed to see his friend just sort of staring of into space.

After 30 seconds of nothing Danny spoke. "You know, when I gave you those instruction I thought the same thing. I didn't plan it properly, I was trying spontaneity."

"You're first experience of spontaneity is you teaching me something? Now I'm really reassured."

There was another pause then Danny suggested. "Shall we try music?"

"Music?"

"Some people prefer to listen to music while they're meditating, it helps them calm down a bit easier. And gives them something to concentrate on."

"Surely if you're concentrating on something you're not contemplating nothing?"

Danny winged his hands a bit. "I think I might have explained this wrong. You're not literally thinking of nothing, that's impossible. What you're doing is focusing exclusively on something, in my case it's my heartbeat, and blocking everything else out. Some people like to concentrate on music. You like music don't you?"

"I hope you mean actual lyrical music, not that whale howling nonsense you've got on your iPod."

"Obviously, you know what they say. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life, that ones from Berthold Auerbach."

"Who?"

"Never mind. Now, I'm putting my IPod of shuffle. All these songs are from my 'Relaxation' list, so hopefully they'll help."

Luke nodded. "Okay then."

"Alright let's go." Danny raised his voice a little louder to be heard above the music. "Hands on knees. Remember what I said, try not to focus on anything except the music."

So Luke closed his eyes and did his best to follow the instructions exactly. And he found he actually quite liked it, his mind would occasionally wander, but for the most of it it was quite soothing. The next thing he knew Danny was talking to him.

"…Luke? Earth to Luke. Come in Luke Cage."

"I'm out." Luke came back around a looked around the room. "How long was that then?" he was quite proud of himself actually, it had seemed ages, had to be at least half an hour.

"5 minutes."

"Only five minutes!?"

Danny nodded, smiling a bit. "The idea is Luke to get your body used to it. We've actually spent just as much time as last time, but obviously for most of it we were trying to find out what worked best for you. Now we know, so next time we can just go straight to the music. That is, if you want to try this again?"

Now the feeling had come back to Luke's spine. He twisted a bit, trying to relieve it while saying. "I think I do actually. This wasn't as bad as last time."

The blonde's smile was going from ear to ear. "Brilliant! Erm…tell you what, we won't schedule a time. Next time you want to meditate just tell me okay?"

"Absolutely, your highness."

"Seriously, knock it off."

"Sorry, Danny."


	31. Run Pig Run

**Hey! Roxy Goth here, sorry for not updating for a month, but I've been giving my other stories attention. I also have Tumblr now. [Name still RoxyGoth] **

**Okay, first up thank you's.**

**Guest 1 – Thanks! Glad you think it's amazing. **

**Guest 2 – Thanks for the compliment! Very glad you love my fanfics!**

**TabbyCat – Thank you, have you started meditation yet? Good luck with it!**

**Otaku-Heroes – Glad you're loving it. I love writing this, it's brilliant. **

**NyanWolf – Thank you, I love writing Luke's quips. They usually make me laugh while writing them. Glad this story is making you smile. **

**The Little Svecica – Thank you, glad you love it. I'm glad you're enjoying the out-of-costume bromnace. You know, till you reviewed I didn't realise how much I was writing them out of school. It's because we see a lot of them in school [For this season anyway] so I'm trying to do the flip side. But now that you mention it, I think you'll like this chapter. **

**This chapter takes place during Run Pig Run. See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Where the heck's Parker?" Ava complained, standing in the hallway. "Doesn't he know its picture day?"

"If he's got any sense he's probably hiding." Sam told her. "Have you seen his previous pictures? Dweeb alert."

"They can't be that bad." Danny said, leaning against his locker.

Sam's eyebrow went up. "Have you not…you've not seen them. Have a look at this." He showed Danny Peter's pictures. Luke, interested, watched over Danny's shoulder and burst out laughing.

"Oh, dude. No wonder he hasn't turned up."

Ava, who had also sneaked a look, said. "If I were him I'd hide in the garbage."

The four of them burst out laughing, when they finally stopped Danny said. "But seriously. Where is he? He's not usually late."

The rest of them scanned around the hallway as if hoping Parker would materialise out of thin air.

"He'll be fine." Sam said, airily.

"There could be traffic." Luke said.

Ava scoffed. "He can web-sling." She said, pointedly, in a low voice.

"Oh right." Luke said, sheepishly.

"Attention students." Coulson's voice came booming over the loudspeaker. "All students, whose LAST name begins with A, come to the gym now for your pictures. Repeat, all students with the last name beginning with A, to the gym now. Thank you."

"That's us." Sam said as he and Ava walked of. "Catch you later."

Luke waved before shooting a look at his blonde friend, who hadn't moved. "You're really worried about him, aren't you?"

Danny sighed. "People don't break their habits for no reason, Luke. I fear something is wrong. There is disharmony in the air."

"In all fairness that could easily be the assault on the human senses that Flash's wearing."

Danny sighed again. "Perhaps."

Frowning, Luke clapped his friend gently on the shoulder. "C'mon. We'll be late for first period. Science, yay!"

"See, Peter wouldn't intentionally miss science. Something is wrong."

Luke was about to dismiss him, when his mind reminded him of Danny's worries just before Trapster had shown up. He hadn't been wrong then, so why should it be any different now?

"Okay, tell you what. Peter clearly isn't here. We'll keep an eye out for him, that way if he needs cover to get into class, he won't get into trouble. Problem sorted."

Danny looked at him, before echoing. "Problem sorted." Though he didn't sound at all convinced. Together they went to first period.

Later on after Luke had had his picture taken, they'd rescued Parker, or Porker as he was now known, from scarily determined Asgardian Hunters, [Why did everything weird happen to Parker?], they were now on board the Tri-Carrier.

"So who's gonna tell Fury?" Ava asked. No one volunteered.

"Seriously?" Porker complained.

"Well, you can't blame us!" Sam said. "Fury's gonna kill us!"

"Why would he kill us?" Luke asked.

"Er, because now there's three Asgardian Hunters after us!"

"That were on wolves. They can't get up here!" Ava.

"I wouldn't be so sure." Danny said. "Asgard is massively different from earth."

"Even so wolves can't fly!"

"We're getting of track." Luke said, deciding to be the sane one. "The point is who's going to tell Fury?"

"Who's going to tell Fury what?" The man himself said, appearing out of nowhere. Again.

"Gah!" Sam leapt backwards. "Can you please stop doing that!?"

Fury ignored him, eyes trained on the cowering pig in the middle of four of his trainees. Wait…

"Is that who I think it is?"

"Depends." Peter said, weakly. "Who do you think it is?"

"It's Peter." Danny said, to Fury. "Loki put some sort of spell on him."

"Well not some sort. Clearly it's one that turns him into a pig." Fury clarified, unnecessarily.

"And the prize for best observation of the week goes to…" Peter muttered.

"What was that, Porker?" Fury said sharply.

"Nothing, sir."

"Good. Continue, Daniel."

"There are three Asgardian hunters after him. We've spent the whole day slowing them down. Peter was trying to escape before then. He joined us after 4th period."

"And it's now 5. Good job team."

"Hello? What am I meant to do?" Peter complained.

"All of you come with me. I've got a plan. Where's Coulson?"

"With Thor." Luke said.

"Where's Thor?"

"With Coulson." Sam butted in, smiling.

Fury looked like he wanted to punch him. "I see that. Where are they?"

"At school."

Fury nodded, turned back round. Walked a few paces and then whipped back round as if just realising something. "Thor's here? But he can't stop the hunt."

"No. But he CAN slow it down." Peter explained.

Fury nodded, a brief smile playing over his lip. "Loophole abuse? I like it. Well, I'll send a message to Coulson. Wait in there." He nodded to the main SHIELD base.

Once his trainees where safely out of hearing range Fury spoke into his wrist communicator. "Coulson? Come in Coulson. Coulson! I swear to god…"

Suddenly Coulson's face appeared on the screen. He appeared to be fighting something. "Here, Director Fury. What do you need?"

"You and Thor, Tri-Carrier as soon as possible."

"On our way."

Fury signed out and left to go and instruct his trainees in what to do next.

Later on, after they'd defeated the Asgardian Hunters and got rid of Thor and the god of irritating ,Loki, god Fury hated that guy, the man in black congratulated his team.

"Well, what can we say? Teamwork." Luke grinned, high-fiving Danny,

Fury grinned. "Well, you all look exhausted. Go to bed, team. Go home, Parker. Coulson, I want a word."

"Right away, sir."

"Ooh. Coulson's in trou-ble!"

"GO TO BED, SAM!"

"By the way, where did you get those pictures of Peter?" Luke asked Sam.

Sam looked blankly at him. "What?"

"The pictures. His school pictures. The ones you just showed us."

Sam smirked. "When you have a racoon with a grudge against the world for a mentor you learn a few things."

"So you're not telling me?"

"Not on your life."

Once inside Fury's office, he gestured to Coulson to sit down. "Coulson. I think we can learn from today. I'm the director of SHIELD, and you're my right-hand man. But we made some pretty stupid errors today."

Coulson nodded, though he didn't really see where Fury was going with this.

"Now, for me, announcing that I wanted you and Thor to go to the Tri-Carrier, while you were clearly fighting was a pretty stupid move. That's clearly how those hunters knew where we were."

"The wolves probably helped." Coulson felt obliged to point out.

"Hmm. So that's me. For you…well, you're an intelligent man, you probably already know."

Now Coulson knew where Fury was going with this. "I shouldn't have announced I'm the principle of Midtown High."

"Exactly."

"In my defence, they already knew. They ambushed the school."

"They knew you were the principle. They didn't know you were with SHIELD. You could have just had army training for all they knew."

"I think they would have put it together when they saw me on board the Tri-Carrier."

Fury paused. "Twin brother?" There was a silence. "Stupid idea, never mind. Look, I'm just saying, try and be more careful. Even though the Asgardians are primarily people of peace, there are some idiots like Loki running around. Last thing we want is him knowing where our trainees are."

"Noted. Taking it I need to file a report?"

"More than one. One to explain the fire-bell going off at an un-scheduled time. One to explain everything that happened today. That's for the school board. For myself, I just need a report detailing what you did today, what weapons you used, how effective they were and where you need to improve."

"Got it."

"Goodbye, Coulson."

"Goodbye Director Fury."


	32. Who's sleeping where?

_Hey! Happy Bonfire Night! I'm back, I'm really sorry for not updating sooner. No excuse whatsoever. Anyway, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer._

_Thank you to Nyan Wolf, The Little Svecica and TabbyCat for reviewing the last chapter, this next one takes place after the season 1 finale, just after Peter has introduced the team formally to Aunt May. I've always wondered how they got the room thing sorted…_

_Let's crack on, shall we?_

"May is so cool." Luke remarked after they'd been introduced to Peter's aunt. "I mean can you think of any other aunt who'd go, 'sure, I'm happy for four teenagers to come and stay in my house indefinitely', can you?"

Danny shook his head. "That's right my friend. As Vonna Bonta said 'There is no hospitality like understanding.'

It was at this point that Aunt May said. "Right then, the kitchen is through that door, you all must be thirsty, feel free to make yourself a drink. Peter, a word?"

"Sure, aunty."

The remaining four trooped into the kitchen. "Would have been helpful if she'd mentioned where the glasses are." Sam pointed out, glancing at all the cupboards.

Ava narrowed her eyes as if a thought had suddenly crossed her mind. "You better be polite, Sam. Sam!"

"Sorry, what?" Sam was currently opening all the cupboards. "What do you guys want?"

"Just water thanks." Danny said.

"Same for me, after all that I'm parched." Luke said, agreeing with his friend.

Ava was by now nearly purple. "Sam, are you listening to a word i'm saying?"

"No, I wasn't. Ah, found them!" With a triumphant smile, he pulled four glasses out, balancing them in his arms carefully. Then he caught sight of Ava's face. "Okay! You have my attention, go on."

"You had BETTER be polite to Aunt May."

Sam made a face. "We're not really calling her 'Aunt May' are we? She's not our aunt. May has a much better ring to it."

"SAM!"

"Geez, alright, of course I'm going to be polite. She's being really nice here."

"I mean for longer than a day or two, Sam."

"So do I! Trust me, I'll be fine."

"You better…"

Luke gave a slight laugh to Danny as they filled up their glasses at the sink. "Yeah, how long do you think that'll last?"

Danny gave a slight smile. "Laugh all you want, Luke. But I believe he means it."

Luke gave his friend a look of surprise. "You do? You bein' serious?"

"Perfectly. Sam's been respectful to Fury and Coulson, why not Aunt May?"

Luke couldn't think of a suitable counter-argument so he just shrugged. "Whatever."

"I see you found the glasses." Peter said, coming in. "So Aunt May's of to her bowling club…"

"She goes bowling!?" Sam said in surprise, turning to face Peter. "Seriously? I love bowling!"

Peter looked at him like he'd grown two heads. "Yeah, she goes every Thursday night. It's kinda her thing. Along with French cooking classes. And yoga. She does a lot."

"Do you think she'd let me go with her?"

"You are not going bowling with my aunt, buckethead."

"Why not?"

"Cos, it's weird!"

Danny gave a shrug. "No more weirder than her letting four teenagers spontaneously move in." He pointed out.

"That's different!"

"Actually…" A smile formed around Danny's lips. "I like the idea of French cooking classes. Do you'd reckon she'd let me go?"

"What? No!"

At this point Ava said, thoughtfully. "I'd quite like to start yoga…"

"I'd advise against that." Luke told her. "Trust me, it kills you. If you wanna carry on being able to do those acrobatic back flips, front flips and general gymnastics, stay away from them."

Danny rolled his eyes fondly as Peter waved his arm frantically. "Would you all shut up!? No yoga, no French class and definitely no bowling!" He then paused to take a breath. "Before she left she instructed me to give you a tour of the house and work out what rooms you're having, so if you'd like to follow me…"

One tour of the house later and they were in the corridor outside Peter's room. "Okey, so here's how it's gonna work. We have one spare room with a double bed in it, however there is room for an airbed on the floor. We have three airbeds, Ava, Aunt May suggested you go in her room, what with you being a girl and all…"

"So I don't have to share with one of you lot? Done!" Ava grinned.

"Is the couch not an option?" Luke asked.

"We don't have a fold out one so, unless you want to ruin your back, I'd advise against it. Trust me."

Danny nodded. "Okay so that leaves two in the spare room and one in your room basically."

"Yeah, basically."

Immediately Luke was on it. "So me and Danny in the spare room, taking turns to sleep on the bed, and the floor, obviously, so Sam's in with you?"

"Er…" Danny and Ava said together at exactly the same time Peter and Sam went.

"Yeah, I don't think so…"

"Not in this light year!"

Luke held his hands up in defence. "Okay, okay! Big mistake. Peter in his room, Sam in the spare, okay…"

"So where are you and Danny going?" Ava asked.

Luke glanced at her. "What?"

Ava tsked in annoyance before snapping. "Okay, so Peter's in his room, Sam's in the spare. Which one of you two is in the spare room with Sam and which one's with Peter in his room?"

"I don't mind." Peter said, immediately.

"Neither do I." Sam declared.

At this point Danny decided to intervene before they all died of old age. "Can I just point out that whoever I'm sharing with is going to have to put up with my meditating?"

"True that." Luke said, nodding.

"Okey, I'm out." Sam said, quickly. "No offence, Danny, but I still think all those scents you have are we-ird."

"Thanks, Sam." Danny deadpanned.

Peter held a hand up. "Hold on, I know what meditation is, it's the thing where you sit in silence for a bit and say 'om', right?"

Danny's eyes narrowed slightly. "Well, there's a bit more to it than that, but in essence yes."

"So…scents?"

"Candles." Danny explained simply. "Scented candles. Lavender and Jasmine are my favourite, though I do have others, of course. Quite a few of them actually. Ten, to be exact."

Peter nodded. "Sure, that's fine. You'll get on with Aunt May if you like scented candles, she has about ten in the cupboard downstairs, and that's not counting the two she's got on the go at the minute."

Danny smiled and nodded. "Okey then, I'm with you, which means Sam's with Luke."

As if just realising this Sam and Luke looked at each other and then said at the exact same time. "I'm sleeping on the bed! No, I am!"

"First one there wins!" Luke said, before charging into the spare room, Sam following behind.

Ava rolled her eyes, muttering about the stupidity of boys under her breath as she went downstairs to get her bags.

Peter watched her go before turning to Danny. "So, I'll have the floor tonight and then you can have it tomorrow…"

"No." Danny said, in his usual polite manner. Peter blinked before going.

"Excuse me?"

"No. I'm the guest, you're the host, you should have the bed."

Peter blinked again trying to make sense of what his friend was saying. "But…you're the guest, so surely you should have the bed and I have the floor. We'll take turns…"

"Peter." Danny's eyes met his. "I am not sleeping on your bed, end of discussion."

"But, why?"

"In Kun Lun, if a host is kind enough to offer you a space in their room, you do not impose on them further by making them give up their own comforts."

"Yeah, but you're not in Kun Lun now."

"Even so. Now, I'm going to go and get my stuff."

"Sure." In bewilderment Peter started after him before muttering to himself. "Okay, so clearly I have more to learn about my team mates…"


	33. Hunters Chicken?

_**Hey! I'm back, hope your all alright! Now, this chapter [despite the fact I haven't updated for over a month] takes place two days after the previous one. Basically, in my mind the team know a lot about each other at this stage, but Peter and Aunt May don't know a lot about the team, so that's where the logic behind this one comes. **_

_**Anyway, thank you to Tabby Cat, The Little Svecica, TheRandGirl and Nyan Wolf for reviewing the last chapter. Thank you also to anyone who's been following and favouring.**_

_**Anyway, on with the story, see chapter 1 for the disclaimer. **_

"What do you want for dinner?" Peter asked Ava, quickly catching her as she came up the stairs. "Pizza?"

Ava pulled a face. "No thanks, we had pizza Thursday and yesterday. How about something healthy?"

"Healthy?"

"Yeah good for you? We ARE in training, you know."

Peter shrugged. "Sure, healthy's good. So, whaddya want?"

"Fish? I dunno, some salad? You figure it out." She walked past him to Aunt May's room and shut the door.

Peter rolled his eyes, before knocking on Luke and Sam's door. "What do you want for tea?" He yelled.

Inside the room Luke and Sam had been playing some video games, on hearing their friend bellow, Luke paused the game and opened the door. "I'd like some burgers."

"Ooh! Burgers sound good, loads of ketchup on mine, thanks!"

"And I prefer Cheese Burgers." Luke said, smiling.

Peter frowned. "Ava said it has to be healthy."

"Burger and a salad, sorted."

"Ugh, I hate salad." Sam whined, throwing himself against the bed.

Luke turned and glared at him, before going back to Peter. "What do you think?"

"…Isn't Danny a vegetarian?"

"I am." Peter just about leapt out his skin before turning round to see the vegetarian in question standing behind him. Ignoring the fact that he'd nearly given his leader a heart attack Danny carried on. "You can get vegetarian burgers. They're quite nice actually."

"So that's what everyone wants? Burgers? With salad?"

"Not with salad." Sam said, screwing up his nose in disgust.

"Ignore him." Luke advised Peter. "He says he doesn't like stuff but then eats it anyway."

"O-key then. Great! I'll go tell Aunt May…"

"Is she in tonight?" Sam asked.

Peter stared at him before sarcastically replaying. "No Sam, I meant my OTHER Aunt May. Of course I mean my Aunt May, she only goes out on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, she's home every other day." Rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his friend he headed downstairs, hearing Sam say sulkily.

"I was only asking, geez."

Meanwhile in the kitchen Aunt May was cooking, she heard someone coming down the stairs and looked up to see her nephew standing in front of her.

"What's cooking, Aunt May?"

"Hunters Chicken." She said, happily, stirring the sauce a little more. Not hearing a response she turned to see Peter looking a little upset. "What's wrong? You like Hunters Chicken."

Her nephew scratched the back of his head awquadly. "Danny's a vegetarian…"

May froze, before snapping her eyes up to meet Peter's. "What?"

"Danny's a vegetarian."

May let out a groan of annoyance. "Peter! Why didn't you tell me? I'd had made something different…"

"I though you would have noticed him eating lunch and breakfast."

His aunt raised an eyebrow disapprovingly at him. "Peter, believe it or not, I don't analyse your friends eating habits. You should have mentioned it. Anyway, it's done now."

"It is?"

"I'm halfway through making this; I'm not throwing it away. It'd be such a waste."

"…So, what about Danny? He has to eat something."

May resumed stirring the sauce. "Yes, of course. You're sure he's a vegetarian and not a vegan?"

"What's the difference?"

"Oh, quite a lot, dear. Never mind, go and fetch him for me, would you?"

"Sure thing, Auntie." Peter went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up. "DANNY! AUNT MAY WANTS YOU!"

Danny, who was sitting on the bed in Luke and Sam's room, currently watching them try to beat each other to pulps on the video game, called back. "Okey, I'm on my way!"

"Wonder what she wants?" Luke said to Danny.

"No idea, my friend. But whatever it is, I'll try to be of assistance."

Luke gave a little laugh. "That sounds like something we should be saying to you. Yes your majesty, I'll try my utmost best to be of the utmost help, your majesty. Your highness, you wonderfulness, your…"

"I get it, Luke." Danny said, warningly, before descending downstairs. Luke chuckled again, turning his attention back to the screen, only to realise his character had been killed.

"Hey!"

"Hey, you snooze, you lose, Power Up."

"Oh, it is on now, lightning boy!"

Meanwhile downstairs May was asking Danny. "Are you a vegetarian or a vegan?"

"Vegetarian."

"Right, okay then. Peter, for some reason, hasn't mentioned that." She threw a glance at her nephew, who was currently trying to blend into the wall. "So today, I made Hunters Chicken."

Danny tactfully said. "As lovely as it looks and smells, May, I really can't eat it. I'm a Buddhist."

May nodded, mentally making a note to do research into that later. "Okay, just checking. So, what would you like for dinner?"

The young blonde shrugged. "Just some salad would be fine, May. I can make my own, if necessary."

Peter's aunt looked worried at that. "You need something more than salad, Danny. It's dinner."

"Do you have carrots, hummus and tortillas?"

Peter and May glanced at each other as the randomness of the question had thrown them of a bit. "Yes, we do." May assured Danny.

"I'll make myself a carrot and hummus roll up then, if you don't mind that is."

"No, go ahead."

Peter left the kitchen, leaving Danny and his aunt to their own devices.

"Where's Danny?" Luke asked, as soon as Peter walked in the room.

"Downstairs making his dinner. The rest of us are having Hunters Chicken."

"Yes!" Sam grinned. "I love Hunters Chicken!"

Peter ignored him. "So, who won the game?"

"I did." Sam told him smugly.

"Only cause you cheated when I was talking to Danny!"

"Yeah right."

"Yeah. Right."

"Oh so you wanna go again do you?"

"Yeah, and this time I'll beat you good and proper!"

"Let's go then!"

Peter rolled his eyes before settling down to watch.


	34. Pitch Black

**Hey! I'm back, first up hope you guys had a nice holiday. Secondly I'm going on holiday in a little while, so after this there may not be an update for a couple of weeks. **

**Thirdly – Thank You's. **

**Man285 – I'm not sure at the moment, I play things by ear when developing this story, which is why there's sometimes such a gap between the updates. I'm not using it out though.**

**The Little Svecica – I know right? **

**The Rand Girl – I don't know if it's explicitly stated in the show, but it's certainly implied. Sam says to Danny something along the lines of 'Oh, and vegetarian for you Danny' when they moved in together. **

**Last – This chapter takes place directly after the last scene of 'Electro'. I do not own Uno. See chapter 1 for the disclaimer and let's crack on. **

"Nice going, Peter." Ava said, icily.

Peter held a hand up. "I didn't mean to! Give me a break!"

"First you super-charge Electro, then you black us out." Sam said, unhelpfully, carefully folding up his picture.

"For the last time, bucket-head, that wasn't deliberate!"

"Mistakes are opportunities for learning." Danny said, tapping the table.

"Come on people." Luke said, trying to get them back on track. "What are we gonna do?"

"We can carry on with this. Or we can meditate." Danny suggested.

"I am not mediating." Sam said, firmly.

"Sorry Danny, I don't want to, but let's do something else." Ava said.

"Okay then, my friends, how about a game?"

"What sort of game can you play in the pitch dark?" Luke asked.

"Blind man's bluff?" Ava said.

The boys shook their head. "Nah, that's boring." Sam said. "We should play a proper game!"

"Like what, Mr Sparky?"

"Uno." Danny said, suddenly.

"What's Uno?" Luke asked him.

"A card game. Do none of you know how to play?"

"I do." Peter said.

"I don't."

"Me neither."

"Don't think I have either."

Danny gave a smile. "Perfect, I'll get the candles."

"Woah, wait, what? Candles? Why?" Peter sounded panicked.

"It's a card game; we need some light to see." Luke pointed out.

"Do not worry, my friend. I'll only get a few and arrange them so they shine nicely." Danny said, simply.

As the blonde left, Peter called after him. "Just be careful! Aunt May won't be thrilled if she comes back and the house is on fire!"

"You seriously need to take a chill pill." Sam muttered to himself.

Two minutes later Danny called down the stairs. "Luke!"

"What?"

"Bit of help please!"

"Comin'!" Luke got up and went up the stairs. Upon reaching the top he saw Danny standing in the doorway of his room. "What's up, bro?"

"I've just realised I can't carry all this. Can you take the cards and the lighter please?"

"Sure." Luke took the required items.

"Brilliant, I've got the candles."

"Four of them, I see."

"Yes, Jasmine, Lavender, Vanilla and Coconut." Danny recited, nodding at them in turn.

His friend pulled a face. "Interesting mix. Is it gonna smell nice or make me want to throw up?"

As they walked downstairs the blonde said. "Well, hopefully it's going to smell quite nice…"

"Oh!" Luke stopped his suddenly, causing Danny to drop one of the candles on his foot.

"Ow! For crying out - Luke!"

"Sorry. But, how much longer till you go?"

His friend shot him a look. "42 days."

"Really? That all?"

"Yep." Danny fished the remaining candle of the ground. "Six weeks today I'll be gone. Why?"

"Jus' wondered. We should do something to mark that you know." Luke said, thoughtfully.

"No, don't."

The taller of the two looked at his friend. "Why not?"

"Er – because no one knows? I haven't told Sam and Ava about me leading Rand Industry's, nor Peter."

"So it's just me who knows then?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Er, yes?"

"Hmm." Luke caught Danny's eye. "Nah, it's just I thought you might had told them when I wasn't around."

"Well, I haven't."

"Why not?"

"Have you told them about your parents?"

"No, fair enough." Luke said, admittedly.

"Dudes!" Sam squawked from the living room. "What's TAKING so LONG!? Just get back here so we can play the game!"

"Alright we're here. Luke, you light the candles, I'll do the cards."

"Sure thing, bro. How does this thing work?" Luke looked at the lighter. "Is it like this?" He clicked the circle and a flame leapt out the end, startling Power Man so he dropped it.

Danny immediately snatched it from mid-air. "Actually you know what, you shuffle and deal the cards, I'll light the candles. Geez, I thought I was giving you the easy job…"

"How many cards each?"

"Seven."

Five minutes later the candles were safely lit and the cards were dealt.

Ava looked around. "So? Who's starting?"


	35. Peter's Party Part 1

**Hey! I'm back! Hope you're all alright. Thanks first of all to…**

**The Little Svecica and TabbyCat for reviewing the last chapter. The quote is by **_**Dalai Lama**_

**This chapter takes place about a week and a half before the time of House Arrest. This bit is split over three chapters. **

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer. **

"Luke Cage to the principal's office, I repeat, Luke Cage to the principal's office." Coulson's voice came over the intercom.

Luke looked up in mild confusion, before looking at Ava and Peter who both shrugged.

"Er…can I go, Miss?" Luke asked the teacher who gave a sharp nod of approval.

Luke racked his brains as he walked trying to think of why Coulson would want to see him. He'd been doing well with SHIELD training and he'd had no problems at Aunt May's house and as far as he was aware he wasn't failing any classes.

The strong man let out a sigh as he massaged his temple. He really hoped he wasn't failing any classes, truth to be told he worried about that occasionally as did Danny and Sam. Seeing as all three of them had not attended school for at least five years, it was a valid concern.

Then again he supposed if he was failing any classes it wouldn't be the end of the world, if it was Maths he could get Danny to help him. If it was English, Ava and if it was Science then Luke would be seriously annoyed because Science was the one subject he was in the top set for, okay technically that wasn't true, all four of them were in the top set…

Luke let out a yelp of pain as he collided with Coulson's office door. "Sweet Christmas that stings…" He moaned, rubbing his aching forehead.

"Come in, Luke." Coulson's voice said, dryly.

The teenager opened the door. "Yes sir?"

"Sit down, Luke." The guy in question did so and after checking the door was definitely shut, asked.

"Is this school stuff or SHIELD stuff?"

"SHIELD stuff."

"There's a relief." Luke sighed, relaxing in his chair a bit.

Coulson shot him as look as he busily tidied papers. "There's no need to worry about your school work, Luke, you're doing perfectly well. No, the reason I called you in here is to tell you that the Heli-carrier has been repaired."

"Really?"

"Yes, it's back and better than ever as they say. Anyway, the four of you are to return to it next Saturday"

"Do the rest of them know?"

Coulson shook his head. "We're going to call Ava, Peter, Sam and Daniel in at random intervals during the day to make it seem less conspicuous."

Suddenly a thought popped into Luke's head and without really thinking about what he was actually saying he found himself going. "Actually, do you mind if I do it?"

Coulson shot him a confused look. "Why?"

"I was thinking we could throw a party for Peter, you know, to say thanks for having us and all that."

"When?"

"Next week? Aunt May's away, so yeah, next week."

The principle nodded slowly. "I don't see why that would be a problem. Just make sure the rest of them are on board with it first."

"I'll ask them all." Luke said, then he added. "Apart from Peter, obviously. Seeing as it's going to be a surprise party and all. Alright! Thanks Coulson! Can, can I go? Now?"

"Yes."

With that Luke nodded and walked out the room.

Immediately after he'd gone Coulson got on the wrist-phone to Fury. "Director Fury, sir?"

"Yes, Coulson?"

"I told Luke the Heli-carrier was going to be fixed…"

"What'd he say?"

"He was fine with it, but he asked if they could throw a party for Peter…"

"Why?"

"To thank him for letting them stay in his house. What do you think?"

"What did you say?"

"I said yes. I didn't see a problem with it."

Fury nodded. "In that case neither do I. Only thing I would say though is if there's going to be a lot of teenagers messing around in that house we need to have a copy of the house standing by just in case. When are they having it?"

"Next week."

"Alright then, Phil. I'll get the builders on it and move it to top priority. It should be done by next week then."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "Top priority? Really, Fury?"

"Fifty teenagers running around in a house that's equipped with SHIELD equipment and has five SHIELD teenagers living in it? Something's bound to go wrong. Hopefully nothing major, but something will go wrong."

Coulson couldn't help smiling. "I see you still have complete faith in them."

"I do have faith in them. I'm sure they won't do anything irresponsible deliberately. Emapthis on deliberately."

The other agent nodded. "Okay, I see where you're coming from. I've got to go now Fury. I'll report later."

"Goodbye, Phil."

Meanwhile Luke had returned to his lesson and had zoned out for the rest of it thinking about this party. The more he thought about it the better an idea it seemed and then he had another brainwave. "Danny!" He said out loud, getting weird looks from everyone in the class in the process.

The teacher glared. "Are we interrupting you, Mr Cage?"

"No, sorry miss, carry on." And with that Luke resumed thinking. He could make it a joint party! Thanking Peter for having them and also a goodbye party for Danny! It was an awesome idea. Then a memory from the week before floated into his mind.

'I haven't told anyone that I'm leaving and I don't want them to know' had basically been what Danny told him last week. Luke nodded slowly to himself. Yeah…that might put a major flaw in his plan. Best thing to do, he decided reluctantly, was to ask Danny himself. It'd put a hole in the whole 'surprise party' idea, but he decided it was worth it. Last thing he wanted was Danny mad at him because he'd told the world and its mother about his past.

So at break time he took the opportunity to approach Danny, who was chilling out by their lockers, on his phone.

"Hey Danny, can I have a word with you?"

Immediately the blonde put his phone away. "Of course. Here?"

"Er…no. Yearbook 'office'?"

"Sure." Danny was clearly confused but went along with Luke anyway.

When they were in the 'office', after establishing no one was there, Luke got straight to it.

"The Heli-carriers fixed and we're moving back a week Saturday."

His friend nodded. "Okay. I presume that's not the only reason you dragged me in here?"

"You presumed right. I was thinking next Saturday we could throw a party for Peter, you know, to say thanks for having us."

Danny smiled. "The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness."

Luke nodded, though he didn't properly understand what Danny meant he got the general meaning behind it. "Exactly. And while we were throwing a party for Peter I figured we could make it a joint party."

"For who?"

"For you, a leaving party. Seeing as you're going in thirty-eight days and all…"

"Are you counting down?" Danny asked, in good humor.

"No. Well yes, but not cos I'm waiting for you to go or anything…" Luke added, quickly, not wanting his friend to get the wrong idea.

"Relax Luke, I know what you mean."

"Right. Anyway, what do you think?"

Danny thought for a few minutes and then said. "I do not think so my friend. If it's a thank you party for Peter then it should be that wholly, not partly."

"I thought you'd say that…"

"But…if you really want to do something before I leave we could go bowling or something. Me, you, Ava and Sam. I'll tell them after Peter's party."

"When are you going to tell Peter?"

"I'll find an appropriate opportunity."

"Right, okay, you do that."

"Shall we tell Ava and Sam then?"

Luke was immediately confused. "I though you just said we'll tell them after…"

"No." Danny cut him off. "Not about that, about having a thank you party for Peter."

"A surprise thank you party."

"Whatever it is I think we should let them know."

"All right…" The bell rang. "At lunch."

"Agreed."


	36. Peter's party part 2

**Hey! I know, amazing I'm putting up this chapter only a week after the last one. That makes a change. Anyway…**

**Thanks to TheRandGirl, Little Svecica and TheImmortalWeapon for reviewing and on with story. **

**See chapter 1 for the Disclaimer.**

When lunch finally came Luke met up with Danny. "Okay how should we do this?"

Danny paused before saying. "You take Sam, I'll take Ava and we'll both try to avoid Peter.

"Remember to get them to invite everyone."

"Everyone?"

"As many people as possible."

"I can do that."

"Great, sounds like a plan." Luke held up his hand for a high-five which Danny returned before they parted.

Luke found Sam eating lunch at a table. "Hey."

Sam didn't even look up from his phone. "Hey."

Luke sat next to him and thought. They were surrounded by people there was no way he'd be able to tell Sam flat out. He considered taking him to somewhere else before realising that Sam would demand he give him and explanation which defeated the point of taking him away from the crowd. Luke sighed out loud, this was majorly annoying.

"What's up with you?" Sam said, putting his phone away.

The strong man decided to try a subtle way and hope it didn't backfire. "Alright, you know that game we played a while ago?"

"No…"

Luke gritted his teeth. "The one with the explosions."

Sam threw him a look before saying. "That covers about 90 percent of my game, big guy."

At which point Luke decided to take a huge risk and just go for it. "The one where that spaceship crashed into the sea and blew up after me and you defeated that goblin jerk?"

Sam's eyes cleared in understanding before he nodded. "Oh yeah! That was an easy level." He smirked as he leaned back in his chair.

"Well. It wasn't that easy."

"Was for me."

"Just shut up a minute, got it?" Luke found himself threatening.

Sam smiled again before nodding and motioning for him to continue.

"Well the builders of the game have got the ship up and running again."

"They have!? Awesome! When can we go back…I mean get playing it again?"

"Saturday."

"Alright! Btw dude. Any reason you couldn't tell me this by phone?"

Luke blinked. The idea hadn't even occurred to him. "Er…low battery?"

"Fair enough. But no that's cool. Hope fully they've made better upgrades."

"Yes, but Saturday is the day we're planning to have a surprise party for Peter."

Sam crinkled his nose. "Surprise party? Why?"

"Because he's let us stay in his house and has been really nice to us?" Luke said, angrily catching the attention of a few passing students.

"No! I mean why a surprise party? Why not just tell him?"

"Because I like the idea of a surprise party." The taller one said, eyes narrowing. "Plus he'd never let us do it if we told him." He added. "You know what Parkers like."

"True. Awesome I'm in! Who do you want me to invite?"

"Who's numbers do you have?"

"About half the school."

"Invite all of them. Some of them won't be able to make it anyway."

Meanwhile Danny had found Ava, finally, she was in the library eating a sandwich.

"You, eating in the library?" He said, softly, sliding into the seat next to her.

She swallowed before hissing. "Give me a break, I need to finish this chapter before next session otherwise I'm never going to be able to concentrate."

"Fair enough." Danny quickly thought about how to approach this. He didn't want to text just in case someone got hold of their phones and saw the conversation, so it looked like he was just going to have to do some straight talking. "Our house is fixed now. We can move back next Saturday." He said, he was talking in a relatively quiet voice, but even then he knew he could be overheard so he decided not to mention the Tri-carrier by name.

Ava raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Already?"

"Well, you know, it has been a while."

"That's true." Ava put the lid back on her lunch box before turning to Danny. "Have you told the others?"

"Luke knows and he'd telling Sam now."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Who's telling Parker?"

"We're not." Danny said, then realising how blunt he sounded and seeing the look of surprise on her face he hasted to explain. "We're planning to throw a surprise party for him on Saturday evening before we go back. Invite everyone from school. What do you think?"

Ava smiled. "Sounds good. We should get a gift for him as well."

Danny hadn't thought of that, and neither, he suspected had Luke. "What kind of gift?"

"A photo of us. To remember us by."

"We're moving out not disappearing of the face of the earth."

Ava smacked his arm lightly. "You know what I mean."

"Mmm-hmm. That's a good idea though, especially coupled with the party."

"Do you think a party and a picture will be enough?"

"It isn't the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it." The blonde quoted.

Ava nodded. "Fair enough. Okay then, there's a plan."

"Oh, who can you get hold of to invite."

"I have all the numbers of the Book club, Karate club and the Chess Club." Ava said. "Will that do?"

Danny nodded. "You get hold of them then, thanks Ava."

"No problem, Danny."

At that point Danny left to find Luke. When he eventually managed to locate him by their lockers Luke asked.

"How'd it go?"

"Fine, Ava's on board with everything. She's going to invite the Book club, Chess club and Karate club."

"And Sam's inviting the half of the school he knows. I can deal with the sports teams and Peters science class…"

"And myself and Ava can deal with Peters other classes and I can also invite the yearbook crew and the teachers…"

"Whoa!" Luke held up a hand. Danny blinked and said.

"What is wrong, my friend?"

"You don't invite teachers to party's." Luke told him, seriously. "Yearbook lot, okay, teachers, definitely not."

"Why?"

"You just don't. There's rules against it. Plus that would also mean inviting Coulson and do you really want him there? I mean, Coulson's cool but I can't imagine him dancing to 'All about the beat', can you?"

Danny nodded slowly. "I see what you mean, my friend. Thank you for informing me, I just assumed when you said we were inviting everyone you meant he teachers as well."

"Uh-uh, definitely not. Right so now that's cleared up let's get inviting!"

**Hi! Roxy here again, I know I don't usually have authors notes at the bottom but I didn't want this at the top because I thought it would be a spoiler. I figured Danny would think 'invite everyone' meant 'invite the teachers' as well, because A} he's not gone to a school parties before having only been on earth about two years and B} despite picking it up quickly he's still learning the ropes for life on earth. C} I have a head cannon that Danny can be quite literal at times. Not all the time but occasionally. **

**Anyway, that is all. **


	37. Peter's Party Part 3

**Hey! I'm back! So, final part of this mini-three-shot now, hope you enjoy! This takes place after House arrest, when they finally get back to the new tri-carrier. **

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"That movie was awesome." Sam said, excitedly as they got into the car Coulson sent to pick them up.

"Mmm. And the cake was actually quite nice." Ava muttered, feeling a bit tired. It was now midnight.

"At least he found somewhere to put the picture of us." Luke said, cheerfully.

"I just hope Aunt May doesn't mind the four of us smiling at her from above the mantelpiece." Danny added as he fished his headphones out his pocket.

Sam waved a hand. "She'll be cool with it."

"At least we haven't got school tomorrow." Ava said.

"We've got a little while." The driver announced suddenly. "So if you four want to try and get some sleep then go ahead. We've got half an hour at least."

The four of them had different reactions to this. Sam, who knew he was to wired up from the evenings events decided to play a few games on his phone to pass the time.

Danny, who knew he didn't sleep well while in a car or bus or something similar just carried on listening to him 'relaxing music' group on his I-Pod.

Luke gave a small grunt of frustration at the driver's announcement; he hated sleeping in cars although it wasn't impossible for him. He wiggled a bit trying to make himself comfortable.

"Luke, my friend, as close as we are, I can really do without your elbow in my side." Danny said softly, staring out the window.

The strong man immediately folded his arms and checked his elbows weren't attacking anyone. "Sorry mate."

Meanwhile Ava, who could sleep on the roof if she had to, was happily and comfortably asleep.

For somewhere between half an hour and forty-five minutes the car was silent. Then the drivers voice nearly gave Danny, Luke and Sam a heart attack.

"We're here!"

Danny and Sam both jumped a bit and Luke, who had managed to get literally five minutes sleep, bolted up saying. "I'm up! I'm up…"

Sam snapped his phone shut. "I'm going to bed." He announced, throwing the door open.

"With you on that one. S'cuse me, Danny."

"Surry my friend." Danny opened his door and got out to let Luke pass. Once that had happened the blonde went back into the car to shake Ava awake. "Ava. Ava. A-va…"

"Mmm…"

"Ava, wake up. Come on, we're here now."

Ava opened her eyes and blinked, getting herself adjusted to her surroundings. She sat up, immediately winced and put her hand to her neck because she had a crick in it.

"Are you alright, Ava?"

The black-haired girl gave a hum of agreement before looking at Danny and saying. "Thanks, Danny."

Meanwhile Sam and Luke had got onto the new Tri-Carrier to be met with Coulson. "Hello, Luke, Sam. Where are the other two?"

Sam looked around as if expecting them to materialise out of thin air and then, when they didn't, he shrugged. "Dunno. In the car? Listen, Coulson, no offence, but I'm quite tired. Can I got to bed and gte the grand tour tomorrow?"

"Are the bedroom in the same place?" Luke checked.

Coulson nodded. "Everything is exactly where it was, the Tri-Carrier has been made a bit bigger so all your rooms and now slightly larger as a result, but apart from that everything is the same. The wardrobe, bed and dressing table are in the same places, we retrieved everything that was worth retrieving and wasn't ruined."

Luke nodded and then paused a cold feeling of dread coming over his chest.

At that point Ava and Danny came in and Coulson repeated his explanation to them as well.

Once he finished the blonde said instantly. "You retrieved everything salvable? Please tell me that includes my picture of my parents?"

"And my dad." Ava added.

"And my parents." Luke made three.

"And my family." Sam said, seriously, looking honestly worried for the first time in a while.

Coulson nodded. "You'll be glad to know we did."

"Oh thank god." Danny and Ava said at the same time. Luke and Sam let out sighs of relief and the feeling of dread in the strong-man's chest disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Right, with that sorted, the four of you look exhausted. Go to bed."


	38. Return of the king

**Hey, Roxy Goth here, sorry for the delay. Right, thanks here we go…**

**Thank you to Tabby Cat and TheRandGirl for reviewing the last chapter. **

**This chapter takes place over a month after the last. You might have guessed, it's Journey Of The Iron Fist. **

**See chapter one for the disclaimer. **

"Wow, this is fancy." Peter was currently standing inside Danny's private aeroplane stroking the leather seats.

"I'm glad you approve, Spider." Danny said, a touch of humour in his voice. "C'mon, let's sit down. You've been in an aeroplane before?"

"Once."

"You remember how it works?"

"Yeah, it was one of the last holidays I went on with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. I'll never forget it." Peter's hand had stilled on the top of the seats.

"To forget would be the worst sin."

"Exactly." Peter paused before suddenly moving and sitting down. "So anyway, what goodies have you got in this place? Is the engine made of gold?"

Danny smiled, sitting down in an adjacent chair. "The engine is made of metal. And we have a variety of 'goodies' as you call them. There's a drink bar over there. We don't have alcohol because only the monks and myself use the plane and neither of us drinks. Except at the celebration at the end of the month for the monks, but I digress. There's a small kitchenette back there." Danny waved a hand behind him. "There should be a bell on the side of your chair? Other side."

"Found it."

"If you ring that the waitress will take your order."

"Wow." Peter said, suddenly yawning. "Mmm."

"You are tired, my friend."

"I am."

"There should be a button next to the one for the food, if you press it the chair should recline into a bed, if it's still working, that is." As the plane lifted soared Danny rested his head on his hand. "I have not used this plane in ages."

"How long is ages?"

"I was taken to America in it, so…a year and a half ago? No, sorry two years ago."

"Wow." Peter yawned again. "Sorry I can't keep my eyes open…"

Danny checked put the window. "Were fine now, you can recline the bed if you want. I suggest you get up before doing it."

Peter followed the instruction and soon fell asleep.

Meanwhile back in Kun Lun Doctor Stephen Strange was contacting Director Fury.

"Doctor Strange."

"Director Fury. I have good news."

"I could do with some of that. I've been searching through possible recruits to replace Daniel and no one's seen Parker for the last day…"

"Search no more, he's on his way back with Spiderman."

"He is? Explain, if you please"

"The plane picked Daniel up at 9:30 yesterday. Parker decided to go along with him, they got to Kun Lun ten hours later so 7:30…"

"Parker held onto an aeroplane for ten hours!? I must congratulate him…"

"After going through the competition to see if Daniel could be the king, which he passed the monks have granted Daniel one more year in the outside world."

"They have? I thought they said it was definitely one year?"

Doctor Strange smiled. "You have young Spider to thank for that. He impressed the monks so much they said that if this is what people in the outside world are like they'd be happy for him to walk among them."

"Good job Sam didn't go then. No, that's good. They'll be back at about 8:30 tomorrow morning. Give or take ten minutes."

"I'll let the team know. Goodbye Doctor."

With that Fury immediately went to Sam's room. "Sam." He said throwing open the door.

Sam immediately shoved his Game console under his pillow. "I wasn't doing anything."

"I'm thrilled." Fury said, sarcastically. "Daniel and Peter are coming back at 8:30 tomorrow morning, so trainings been cancelled as they'll be too tired. I want you at the tri-carrier door at 8:25 though, understand?"

"Got it, Director Fury."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Fury delivered the same message to Ava who adjusted her alarm before sinking back into her bed.

Next up was Luke. After knocking and getting no reply Fury walked in. The strong man was dead to the world, snoring lightly.

The man in the cloak rolled his eyes before going over and shaking Luke. It took three attempts but eventually Luke did wake up, flying his fist out.

Fury caught it and watched as Luke blearily opened his eyes and looked around. "Huh? Fury? Uh, have I missed training?"

Dropping Luke's hand the SHIELD leader said. "No you haven't, you know I told you earlier on that Daniel had left for Kun Lun?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Well he's been granted another year and he's on his way back."

"You serious?"

"I am. He's on his way back now…"

"Wha-?" Luke started sitting up. "When?"

"Not for nine and a half hours yet. You need to be up for 8:25 though. Can you manage that?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Right, see you in the morning Luke."

Nine and a half hours later the plane landed on SHIELD's grounds. Danny, who had managed to get some sleep eventually opened his eyes.

"Wha-? Oh, right. Peter…" He turned to see Peter still asleep on the chair-turned-bed. Getting up he went over and shook his friend awake.

Together they descended from the plane to be greeted by a wide-awake Fury, Coulson and Ava and a yawning Sam and Luke. Luke was doing his best to disguise the fact and failing miserably while Sam wasn't even trying and just leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.

"Nice to see you both again." Fury said as he shook both of their hands. "Daniel, good to have you back again. Parker, I want a word with you."

Peter broke off from hugging Ava and high-fiving Sam. "What did I do?"

"Apart from decide to go off to Kun Lun and impress me by holding onto an aeroplane for ten hours? Not to mention impressing the High Monk so much he allowed Daniel to stay? Relax Parker, I'm congratulating you."

"Well done Peter." Coulson echoed, smiling.

Danny had been hugged by Ava and bro-hugged by Sam and then he turned to Luke. "Nice to see you again my friend."

"Ah, c'mere." Luke pulled him in for a hug, almost crushing the blonde.

"Luke…need…need to breath…"

"Sorry." Luke let him go and Danny staggered backwards before regaining his balance.

"Have we go training?" Peter asked, anxiously.

"No, we cancelled it. We knew the both of you would be tired." Coulson said.

Peter let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks'. I need to get back to Aunt May, she'll be going crazy. Bye everyone."

After Parker left and the rest of them had gone back into the tri-carrier, Luke clapped Danny on the back. "What are we doing then?"

"I do not know what you are doing, my friend, but I am meditating."

"I'll come with you, if that's okay." Luke added quickly.

Danny considered. "I need some time on my own." He said slowly. "Not only have I not meditated for nearly twenty-four hours, it was…demanding being back in Kun Lun. I had twelve hours to catch up with everyone and do this ceremony…"

Luke interrupted the explanation with tact. "No problem. I need to have breakfast and I've got homework to do and basically what I'm trying to say is I do actually have a life. I think."

Danny gave a laugh before saying. "If you are serious about doing some mediating maybe half an hour after you've had lunch?"

Luke shot him a look. "You're not eating?"

"We had a feast to welcome my winning the contest. We had a lot of food. And I mean a lot. I don't think I'll need to eat until tomorrow morning at least."

"Really? Ever heard of three meals a day?"

"Luke."

"Fine." Luke let it drop. "I'll come to your room after I've eaten lunch, deal?"

"Deal." They shook on it.


	39. Of Blindness and Arrogance

**Hey! I'm back, sorry for the delay. Right, on with the story.**

**See chapter one for the disclaimer.**

Luke knocked on Danny's door and waited. After getting no response he pushed open the door quietly, not surprised to see his friend in deep meditation.

Making sure not to disturb the blonde Luke sat on Danny's bed and dug his phone out his pocket and silently played a game.

"When did you get here?" Luke jumped up about a mile high, he'd got so engrossed in his game that he didn't even notice Danny come out of his meditative state.

"Geez, Rand, don't do that!" The strong man said, clutching at his chest.

"Apologies, my friend. I did not mean to startle you. Are you well?"

"Fairly. Once my heart gets back to normal. Ugh." Luke sat up and put his phone on the bedside table. "So, how was Kun Lun?"

Danny shrugged. "The same, I believe. Me and Scorpion had to have a contest. To see who would become king."

"And?"

"I unfortunately became blind and so had to send Spider in my place."

Luke paused as he digested this. "You sent Spidey to fight to become king for you?"

"I was blind, frankly I didn't have much of a choice."

"No, I suppose not. How'd he do?"

A smile beamed across the blonde's face. "He won."

"I thought so. Good on Parker. Quick question…"

"Yes, my friend?"

"Would the monks not have taught you to fight blind?"

"Sorry?"

Luke, feeling a lot like an idiot, repeated himself. "Fight blind? I thought that would be included in training, surely?"

A sly smile flickered across Danny's face. "Good insight, Luke. And it was."

"You mean you can fight blind?"

"That's correct."

"So you let Parker do it, why?"

"A couple of reasons…" Danny sat on his bed. "One, the most practical, I've not had to fight blind for some time, not since Trapmaster became our new gym coach, in fact."

"That was a weird day."

"It was, so anyway, apart from that small issue it was a tactic."

"Sounds interesting, I'm listening."

"Basically I wanted to bring Scorpions guard down. Well…maybe it would be better to start at the beginning?"

"Always the best place."

"I didn't foresee going blind. When I left for Kun Lun, I was willing and able to fight when I went over there. When I realised I'd gone blind however I needed a back-up plan, so I sent Spider. I knew it would work because Scorpion in very arrogant of his own abilities. He would never believe that someone from outside of Kun Lun could ever defeat him. So I sent Spider in, Scorpion was suspicious because he knew I wouldn't send someone who couldn't hold their own but…" Danny sighed. "He still didn't believe Spider was a threat to him."

Luke digested this, and then said. "That's all well and good, Danny, but it seems to me that if Spidey hadn't followed you, you'd have been screwed."

"I'm not quite following you, my friend."

Luke sat next to Danny as he explained. "If Spidey hadn't gone, you'd have still gone blind. Who would you have sent?"

"Two things might have happened. The battle might have been put off until I regained my sight, that would be if I couldn't find someone else to send. Thankfully, I did have someone in mind."

"Who?"

"Doctor Strange?"

"Really? Why?"

"Not only is he easily contactable, he actual knows a few martial arts and is physically fit. The only problem is that Scorpion wouldn't have been so blinded by his own arrogance, because he knows what a threat Doctor Strange can be. My point is, there were options."

"Good options."

"Exactly."

Luke nodded and then clapped his friend on than back. "Well, I'm glad to have you back Rand. It feels like I haven't seen you in ages!"

"I was only gone less than sixty hours, Luke."

"I know, but stil…"


End file.
